


But the heart of a man is a simple one

by quantumoddity



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Anal Sex, Ass to Mouth, Blow Jobs, First Time, M/M, Major Illness, Meet-Cute, References to Caleb's past, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Unexpected Meeting, only in chapter 6, the rest is squeaky clean, y'all know what that means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-07-14 09:33:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16037741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Caleb Widogast has worked so hard and sacrificed so much to get to where he is. The youngest archmage in the Dwendalian Empire for close to a thousand years, he thought he'd finally achieved what he'd always wanted- to prove to the world that he was worth something.But now he realises he's been used as a pawn, his hand in marriage sold off without his knowledge to a stranger, a tiefling lord from the Menagerie Coast, a one Mollymauk Tealeaf. Now a heartbroken Caleb faces an uncertain future and a wedding that neither of the grooms actually want.Until one evening in the plaza, he realises that he and the Lord Tealeaf have more in common than they first thought





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Widomauk betrothal au, more fully explained in head canon form on my Tumblr and this is the very first chapter of it! Please leave a comment if you'd like me to continue this series

Caleb wondered what it said about him as a lord that he felt as if he couldn’t smile, couldn’t even breathe, until he was down in the heart of the city itself, lost in the crowds of strangers, far away from the hollow finery that clung to the palace of the other archmages. Here he was just another set of aching feet, another pair of hands rough from work, another drop in the endless river of humanity that flowed through Zadash, never once actually seeing the faces of the men who lead them, who sent their sons out to die and taxed them within an inch of their lives. 

One of the men he was supposed to be part of. 

But here in the dusk of the evening, as the day aged and slowed and stretched and buckled beneath the pressing night, he could feel human again. It had all become far too much, strangling even, the rules and the dust and the rotting riches from a time they tried so desperately to cling to. Hence why, as he had so many times before, he’d pulled a traveller’s cloak over simple woollen clothes and escaped for at least an evening, down into the town. And now he felt his mind waking up again, his heart starting to beat again.

As he watched ragged bands of children appear from one of the city’s winding alleyways and disappear down another one in the blink of an eye, women of half a hundred different races standing in groups as they broke down their market stalls and talking in near as many tongues, men with their backs bent from the days’ work seeking the warm light of either their own homes or the nearest bar, Archmage Widogast could remember how it felt to just be Caleb. He could remember why he’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much on his climb to that palace of faded grandeur squatting on top of the city’s only hill. It had all been to help people like the ones he saw around him right now, the people he used to belong to. 

Whether he’d succeeded at all in that, he had no idea. As far as he could see, the buildings were still falling apart, the pipes were still rusted through, shops were still barred and shuttered, poverty and war and sickness still hung heavy in the air. 

But he tried. He had to keep telling himself that or he’d fall apart. He  _ tried. _

No one gave him so much as a second glance as he traced out his favourite route through the streets, down through the markets to the fountain at the centre of the city where he could sit and read and people watch. Caleb had a common face, long and sombre and flanked by bright red hair and framed by a slight rust coloured beard that were his only defining traits and could easily be slipped out of sight underneath a hood. He looked more clerk or scribe or greengrocer than he did a powerful archmage and, as much as that still made the other council members more sneer than smile at him, Caleb was glad of it right now. It was better than any kind of invisibility spell. He wondered mildly what they’d all say about him if they knew that he regularly fled from their company and mingled with the common people of the city. Like most of the things he did, he imagined they wouldn’t like it very much, another reason he was glad he blended in so well. 

Frumpkin might have drawn some glances, far more than his master, with his richly patterned Bengal coat (there was also the small chance that someone might try and catch him and turn him into a pie) but he was safely tucked inside Caleb’s hood, wound around his neck, purring against him in his sleep. Frumpkin loved the city and was as deeply rooted in it as Caleb himself, no way was he getting left behind. 

The fountain was a magnificent thing, all marble that must once have been gleaming and proud now turned to a dull white by decades of smog and decay, a relic of the height of the Dwendalian Empire. Once Caleb supposed he must have known who it depicted, some ancient hero or beloved archmage with a large ego, but he couldn’t recall it now. And besides, it was hard to think of them as particularly grandiose when now small children used the skirts of his robes as climbing frames and old women hanged their washing up between his upraised hands. Now he was just another part of Zadash, part of the map they’d all been born into. 

Caleb headed for his usual place, a bench off to the left of the plaza. The evening was close with a warm and orange heat, so the space had quite a few people in it, chatting and milling around before heading home at the end of a long day. Caleb didn’t mind that so much, as he took his seat and folded his legs up beneath him, the low mutter of so many voices was actually quite comforting to him, especially after rattling around the empty halls of the palace all day. 

Though empty really wasn’t the word for them these days. The Zadash palace had its first influx of visitors in years, loud and colourful and bold visitors at that. The people from the Menagerie Coast seemed fond of patterns and silk and gilded threat, of wine and talking freely and storytelling. They’d brought much more interesting food than Caleb had ever tasted from the palace’s kitchens, a whole cartload of books their library didn’t have with dazzling, hand drawn illuminations, musicians that were so skilled it was scarcely believable, the first life that had ever been injected into the place as far as Caleb could remember. 

Yet in a single heartbeat, he’d wish them all away. He’d gladly see the back of them all, see they disappear back to their coastline or wherever the hell else they cared to go, and never ever hear another word about the wedding. 

He couldn’t think of it as  _ his  _ wedding. He just couldn’t. 

The memory was still sour and heavy in his mouth; how tears had clogged his throat and he’d stammered and stuttered blindly in front of the whole council when they’d informed him- not asked, informed- that he was to be betrothed to some minor lordling from the Menagerie Coast within the month and they were already on their way. They’d signed the agreement on his behalf. They’d practically sold him, all for some gold, an open trade route and power for themselves. 

Only his friends had stopped him fleeing there and then, abandoning everything he’d worked for and just running away. And the morning of their arrival, Fjord had practically had to strong arm him out of bed and into the hall, all while apologising softly and insisting under his breath that it was going to be okay, he’d get through it. 

And he had. And Mollymauk Tealeaf had been a surprise but not quite in the way Caleb had expected. He smiled, at least, and didn’t seem cruel or cold or harsh. They hadn’t spent all that much time together, in fairness, wedding planning had taken over both of their lives and that’s what was making Caleb sick and exhausted, that was what he’d come here to escape. No doubt the tailor would be in a fury when he found him not in his apartments but, after a week of rapidly changing plans and politicised seating arrangements; sickeningly rich food that only made Caleb think of how so many in the city down below were starving; saccharine music that sang of every possible symbol and facsimile of love for the approaching day that had been neither of the grooms’ idea, he had just found himself utterly unable to care, for a few hours at least. 

He pushed all thoughts of that far out of his mind. He hadn’t come here to sulk over the depressing spiral downwards his life had become. He’d come here to make the most of the few days of freedom he still had left, to read in the sun and feel like a real person again rather than a piece on someone’s chessboard. 

Frumpkin suddenly stretched and crept down his arm, ears pushed forward and eyes alert. 

“What is it?” Caleb murmured, scratching him soothingly behind the ears as he followed his gaze. 

Across the plaza, a crowd was beginning to gather, people snared from their usual well-worn routes home and pulled into some kind of orbit. It seemed to be children mostly, ragged street children with no shoes and wide hungry eyes, children with fruit stained fingers and lips who’d wandered over from helping their parents pack down their stalls, messenger children running scrolls back and forth across the city like little birds. In almost a perfect circle they gathered, buzzing excitedly at the first hint of something new and exciting, standing on tiptoes to see, younger children on their sibling’s shoulders. 

And in the centre of the circle, a man stood in a robe that could only be described as luminescent, almost painful to look at with how bright it was against the drabness of the drowsy Zadash, with just how many gilded threads and plush, dyed colours were woven into it. He was masked too, a great gilded thing that sprouted peacock feathers and sported a huge curved beak, leaving only a pair of glowing red eyes and a crookedly smiling mouth full of pointed teeth behind which crouched a forked tongue. A tail curved lazily behind him, loosely grasping two enormous swords, wickedly sharp, though not as sharp as the two jewelled, curved horns that crowned his head. When he threw his arms wide as if to welcome the gathering crowd, his sleeve rode up to show strong, purple skinned wrists. 

It was a nice idea, to disguise yourself in extravagance, to somehow hide in a walking explosion of colour and light. And it would probably have worked if Caleb didn’t know for certain that there was only one man currently in the Dwendalian Empire who dressed and moved exactly like that. Of course, he knew him immediately, he’d been throwing furtive glances his way ever since he’d arrived at the palace, trying to figure out what kind of man sat across from him at the table by the way he sipped his tea or walked across a room. 

His soon to be husband. 

Caleb’s jaw fell into his lap. 

“Diminutive ladies and gentlemen of Zadash!” his voice rang out across the plaza, thrown out with a flourish, cutting through the heavy evening air, “Please, just a few moments of your time, if you would be so good. I promise, just a scant amount of your attention in exchange for one of the most thrilling sights you’ve ever seen in your young lives…” 

As enthralled as the slowly thickening crowd of people, Caleb abandoned his book entirely and let it fall closed by his side, utterly stunned as he looked at Lord Tealeaf, trying to figure out what in all the realms he was doing. He looked like one of the travelling circus people who had once come through the Dwendalian Empire as regular as the seasons, though less and less as the years and the wars had dragged by. To all the people, young and old, currently gazing slack jawed at him, the hidden lord looked like a relic of a long forgotten but much longed after summer, a technicolour part of a thrilling story broken loose and somehow fallen into their cheerless lives. 

“Though you must be warned, my friends,” Lord Tealeaf declared, apparently stood on some arrangement of boxes for he suddenly became a good few inches taller as he jumped to one side, “Those of a nervous disposition must steer clear of my performance, lest the very real and present danger of my sudden and gory death strike you ill!” 

Caleb frowned as the crowd seethed and chattered excitedly. Was the prospect of marrying him so bad that he’d rather risk death? He suddenly became aware that, as easily as he’d spotted the young lord, he could be discovered in turn. He pulled his hood tighter around his head though he couldn’t drop his eyes from the impromptu performance.

The swords flew to the tiefling’s hands with a simple flick of his thick tail, each one expertly caught without so much as a look.  Even the sound they made seemed sharp and dangerous, a whisper through the air and a metallic hum that promised a deadly edge. But the lord twirled them casually through his fingers as he walked a lazy path above the crowd, seemingly finding it bemusing how those closest to him drew back apprehensively. 

“Far and wide I hear of the suffering and hardship that has befallen this poor city,” his voice carried far though he didn’t seem to be shouting in the slightest, merely projecting above the usual murmur of the plaza, “So here I am to provide you with a simple evening’s entertainment, completely free of charge of course. Steel your hearts and open your eyes, dear friends, for I promise you, I move fast…” 

In that instant, there was a rustle of jewellery as his wrists flickered and suddenly the swords were arching high above him, winking in the low light, whistling down with wicked points turned…at the last possible instant, he caught them and sent them spinning in a merry dance between his hands. 

“...and you wouldn’t want to miss any of it, now would you?” he smirked, to the delighted uproar of the children. 

Caleb slumped deeper in his seat; the instant when it had seemed certain that the swords would bury themselves right into the shoulders of his betrothed had knocked all the air out of him. He and Frumpkin exchanged a surprised glance as the lord continued to juggle his swords, his tail getting involved at some stages, as he danced and spun beneath them, leaving himself only milliseconds to avoid certain injury. His skirts whirled and whistled, jangling in almost their own kind of music to accompany his dance, his smile was radiant and playful. Though it seemed to Caleb, after a moment, that all his smiles were for the children around him. The children with empty bellies and dirty feet and scabbed knees who had known no kind of fun or frolic in their whole lives, not until this moment, until Lord Tealeaf had snuck out of the palace and risked a rebuke, descending into the slums of Zadash just to bring them some joy. 

Caleb felt something in his chest throb. 

He must have let his guard down in that one second because it was just then that the red eyes behind the mask locked with his own and there was a long, slow moment of recognition, the two men feeling their hearts suddenly drop to the bottom of their stomachs. The tiefling really would have lost a finger if he hadn’t been able to sweep his tail suddenly to the side, knock the scimitar at the hilt and send it back to his other hand. The second one he caught much more smoothly and bolted upright, smile back in place. 

“I’m afraid that will be all for today children!” he announced, getting a gale of disappointed groans in response, “I know, I know, my deepest apologies but I swear, I’ll be here every week, same time, same place, with an even more stunning display for your amusement! Now, run along back home, but! Before you do…” 

His hands slid into those cavernous sleeves and emerged again as if he’d simply conjured it all out of thin air, a golden glitter in the gaps of those long, quick fingers. He pressed a gold piece into the hand of every child with a smile just for them and another promise to be back again soon. Night was well and truly underway by the time he was finished and the last child had been patted on the shoulder and waved on home; a chill had replaced the pressing heat and the lamplighters had begun their task, dull yellow flowers blooming in their iron cages all over the city. 

Caleb had been half considering bolting while his intended was busy handing out his gifts, or sliding the array of boxes that made up his makeshift stage back against the wall where they must have been beforehand. Frumpkin made his intentions clear, slipping fluidly off his lap and scampering a little way, turning and blinking his amber eyes at his master, quite obviously waiting for him to follow. But somehow Caleb stayed sat there, rooted to his bench, as the tiefling realised he had no more busy work left to stave off the inevitable and came wandering over, almost bashfully, like he was a child caught red handed in the middle of some escapade. Which was odd, as Caleb had the exact same expression, even if he didn’t quite realise it. 

Frumpkin flicked his ears exasperatedly and slunk back to his side, his expression saying for all the world that he’d stick by his master if he was going to insist on this lunacy but he wasn’t going to be happy about it.

Coughing demurely, Lord Tealeaf perched on the far end of the bench, sweeping off his mask. Without it, he looked younger, more winded, with reddening indentation marks on his nose where the beak had pinched him, sweat beading on his forehead and his curls in disarray. 

“I guess this disguise was a whole lot of effort for nothing…” he joked thinly, putting it on the bench between the two of them. 

“Well…you certainly looked the part, my lord? If nothing else?” Caleb offered, shifting nervously, pulling his coat tighter around him against the gathering night. 

There was a pause and then the tiefling began to chuckle, as if startled by his response but in a pleasant way. After a while, Caleb found himself grinning a little and starting to join in. His laughter had an infectious quality. 

Lord Tealeaf shrugged, “Ah well. I’m sure you’ve already heard the horror stories about me anyway. About how I tried to run away and join a travelling carnival when I was sixteen. All the wild, decadent orgies I threw every single night at my manse. Doing street performances when I’m supposed to be getting fitted for ceremonial robes must seem tame in comparison to all the rumours.” 

Caleb actually hadn’t heard any of that but he decided to keep it quiet, clearing his throat awkwardly, “I mean…I can hardly admonish you for breaking curfew while I’m doing the exact same thing, can I?” 

“True,” he grinned crookedly, “Want to just make the standard agreement? I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me?” 

“Sounds good, my lord,” Caleb felt a wash of relief. 

“Please, call me Mollymauk,” the purple tiefling pressed gently, “I mean, we’re about to spend the rest of our lives together, you can’t stick to the formalities all that time?” 

At the mention of their betrothal, the air between them suddenly seemed to turn colder. Caleb turned his eyes downwards and seemed to sink into himself and Lord Tealeaf began to worry his bottom lip with sharp teeth, catching his tail in his hands and twisting it anxiously, “I…I’m sorry…” 

“No, no,” Caleb cut in quickly, “It’s not…I mean…you wanted this about as much as I did, I suppose?”

The tiefling had no answer for that and maybe Caleb was glad for it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to force this point. The instinct to run away was getting stronger by the second, clawing at the inside of his stomach, climbing up into his throat in the form of a frantic excuse to lurch away.

But what came out instead, in a soft, shy murmur was, “Why did you come down here tonight, my lord?” 

Those red eyes blinked, confused for a moment and then accepting, “I…I like to leave everywhere I go better than when I found it.  It seems like the best I can do. And if Zadash is going to be my home, of sorts, then...this was the first way I could think of to do that.” 

Caleb met his eyes, something passing between the two of them in that moment, as the lamp across the plaza suddenly came to life, washing them both in a burst of gold. And then it was over, lost as the two of them blinked in sudden surprise and smiled reticently. 

But neither of them forgot it. 

“We should really be getting back before they send out the guards,” Caleb stammered hurriedly, as he tucked his book into the inside of his coat, straightening up, “I suppose I’ll see you whenever they rearranged the fitting?” 

“I suppose so,” the tiefling nodded in agreement, getting to his feet, every motion as fluid as before. He turned away, understanding implicitly that they couldn’t return to the palace together. 

“Um…Mollymauk?” Caleb blurted out suddenly, not entirely of his own volition. 

He turned suddenly, his eyes full of pleasant surprise at hearing his name from his intended’s lips, a smile beginning on his face, “Yes? Caleb?” 

“You…did you really throw orgies every single night?” 

Mollymauk burst out laughing, his jewellery joining in, rattling gleefully in amongst his horns. Wiping his eyes, he threw Caleb a grin that was lopsided in such an endearing way, “Not  _ every  _ night, dear. You have any idea how much wine and fruit that would require? I’m not made of money.” 

This time Caleb, joined in the laughter, shaking his head as he bundled Frumpkin back into his hood, “Goodnight, Molly.” 

“Goodnight Caleb,” Mollymauk beamed, walking away languidly, the heels of his boots clicking rhythmically on the cobblestones. 

It was a little while before Caleb himself turned away and started back for the palace of Zadash, through the now quiet streets, through the brief interlude between the end of the working day and when the bars came to life and threw their light and colour and noise into the streets. Everything seemed to thin and melt away as he ascended the hill under the reproving gaze of the palace, sprawling on its perch like some ancient creature, squatting there in its fading grandeur and snarling bitterly over the city. He slipped back in by his usual way, through the servant’s entrance and via a snaking back way corridor that he was fairly sure only he knew the existence of, winding his way back to his chambers, dusty and empty and yawning. 

But Caleb still found himself smiling. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day archmage Caleb Widogast is made to marry a total stranger from the Menagerie Coast, one Lord Mollymauk Tealeaf has finally arrived.

Caleb did something he almost never allowed himself to do; he took a long look at himself in the mirror.

He tried to think objectively about what he saw, as if he were only studying another one of the crystals that had been scattered across his work bench recently as he wrote down the dimensions of each one, their brightness, their clarity, trying to figure out what energies could be refracted through them and how. Those he understood perfectly, it was all figures and coordinates and diagrams. Why shouldn’t this be as simple? 

He tried to see how he could make the long, drawn face that gazed wearily back at him look even vaguely like a lord. Like someone powerful and certain and sure. Like someone confident. Like someone happy. 

Like a groom on his wedding day. 

Caleb had been awake before the dawn, he wasn’t even sure if he’d really slept. Last night, Nott and Jester had tried to tempt him with steins of thick, dark beer, the kind he really loved, around a blazing fireplace. Beau had suggested they all get blazing drunk and go swimming in the fountain again in the palace gardens. Fjord had quickly proposed a more modest and less illegal idea of dice and cards. He’d appreciated the efforts, to an extent, but it was all such a transparent attempt to take his mind off the following morning, complete with forced smiles and joviality, that he hadn’t been able to stomach it for very long, waving them all away and admitting defeat. Even the words of his favourite books hadn’t been able to soothe him, they’d bucked and squirmed on the page in front of his eyes and only left him more frustrated. In the end, he’d hurled his most favourite tome of old folk tales from across the Dwendalian Empire across the room to the opposite wall in a fit. He’d sulked for a full minute until he’d quickly scrambled up to make sure it wasn’t damaged, apologetically dusting off the cover and stroking the spine. 

He must have slept at some point; his hair was an ungodly tangle. The dresser was going to have a fit, Caleb realised glumly, running his fingers through it and only succeeding in making things so much worse. He didn’t hold out much hope that being too scruffy would get him out of this marriage contract. There was so much ceremony and formality tangled up in today but he didn’t think it went quite that far. 

They’d be along soon, he knew, the sun was almost fully in the sky. If Caleb had his way, he’d bar the door, shove his tallest bookcase in front of it, turn out all the lights and determinedly insist the world beyond didn’t exist. But that would achieve nothing. He didn’t want to be dragged into his marriage kicking and screaming, as accurately as it would reflect how he felt inside. The other archmages thought him weak and pathetic, he knew they did, soft hearted and low born, a black mark on their ancient order. But Caleb wasn’t going to give them anything to sneer at today. 

He wasn’t going to cry for them. 

But he was alone now and he could already feel the tightness in his chest, that familiar and hated taste of rust in the back of his throat. He crossed to the bed and knelt, pressing his face to Frumpkin’s fur, trying to take deep, slow breaths like Jester had taught him. It helped a little and the small, raspy tongue lapping at the back of his neck helped even more. 

“At least I’ll always have you, huh?” Caleb smiled weakly, lifting his head to scratch behind his ears. 

He’d have to stay hidden for the ceremony, of course, knowing the little cat he’d likely try to swat at the fringes on the high priest’s robes or scratch the edges of the sacred altar. But Caleb could free him for the feast, maybe sneak him some morsels from his plate when none of the other people on the dais were looking if he’d behave and stay in his lap and not go chasing after anything. 

Caleb didn’t expect he’d have much stomach for the food himself. Not with what was waiting for him at the end of the feast. 

Thankfully, a sharp, formal knock at the door stopped his mind sinking any further into that mire, forcing him to sigh and stand and go open the door to the veritable army of people tasked with making him look even halfway lordly. 

Today was a production, a performance, every step of it carefully blocked and tailored for the benefit of the Empire. Caleb was only an actor, Mollymauk Tealeaf was only an actor. They were all just following their scripts so the lords above them could puff up their chests and point to the elaborate decorations made of twisted silver and diamond and gold when there weren’t even coppers to be found down in the slums and the river of food that would flow through the great hall while the city’s people starved just beyond the gates, they could point and say with pride that the Dwendalian Empire was stronger than ever. 

And when the day was done and the ribbon hangings had been crushed underfoot and all that was left of the rich wines were puddles on the floor and the lords were fatter and goutier than ever, drunk on their own importance, it would be Caleb and Mollymauk who were left in the middle of it all, left following the same script pages for the rest of their lives and growing wearier and wearier and gradually falling apart, trapped. 

As he was pushed into the chair before the silvered glass and a brush was passed through his hair, accompanied by the frustrated tsking of the dresser, Caleb watched as a single, almost invisible tear dripped down the nose of his reflection. 

The ceremony could have lasted a handful of seconds, for all Caleb took notice of it. 

He was vaguely aware of the high priest’s voice, low and sonorous as it echoed off the ancient walls of the temples, and the undulating voices of the prayer singers behind him, but it was as if it couldn’t reach him, even as he knelt on the hard stone steps, front and centre in front of so many pairs of eyes. He felt none of it, heard none of their murmurings.

And yet every shift of silk, every slight ring of metal on metal, every soft exhalation, every movement from the tiefling next to him sounded out loud as thunder. The young lord from the Menagerie Coast had entered the temple in a wash of bright colour; his freshly oiled and sharpened scimitars hanging from his side, the ornamentation in his horns and ears and tail caught somewhere between armour and jewellery, intricate patterns woven into the flowing robes he wore, transforming him into a living story of his people and where they’d come from, everything that had brought him here to this cavernous, ancient hall to marry a stranger. As soon as Caleb had seen him, his breath had quickened with so many different emotions that he couldn’t quite keep track of them, his response inaudible under the significant response from the assembled dignitaries of both of their kingdoms and others from far and wide, condemning and admiring in equal measures. The ripple of noise had followed the tiefling and his retinue as they’d processed down the length of the hall, as his cortèges melted away and took their assigned places, flanking the couple, who had then stood alone in the sight of men and the gods, the offerings from two different nations to be exchanged like coins to buy peace. 

Then Caleb had just gotten lost in it all. 

The prayers and songs didn’t reach him, the words he’d practised fell from his lips carelessly. The sacred oil dripped down his forehead and he didn’t feel it, the light of the refracted crystal fell across his face but he didn’t see it, the gold chain was wound between his wrist and Mollymauk’s but he didn’t feel it.

The only thing he could feel was the presence of Mollymauk beside him, the tiefling always seemed to run hotter than most and warmth radiated from him especially in the cool of the stone temple, that and the eyes that bore down on him from above. The ones in the audience passed over him but the cold, ancient eyes done in opal and jade and black diamond, the ones of the statues of the gods that ringed the sloping walls of the temple, they pressed on him with a physical weight. They asked him what someone like him, someone broken, someone common, someone scarred, thought he was even doing here. What right did he have to stand here in this sacred place? Who was he? 

Caleb had no answers for them. He could only stand and sweat and miss the moment when the high priest declared that the two before him were bound for eternity and their love could be sealed with a kiss, the first of many, having to be reminded with a careful cough from Fjord to turn find Molly’s lips pressed against his own. It was so sudden and dry and swift that it was over before Caleb even registered it and then it was done. 

He was married. 

He’d never felt so hollow. 

Whereas the ceremony passed right over him, like a storm raging outside a house where he was curled up with his head between his knees, for the feast Caleb was submerged in it and there was no escape.

For once, the older archmages wanted him centre stage, right up on the dais in the place of highest honour, beside his new husband. From there he could see the whole party laid out before him, could see his friends laughing and joking together on the lower bench where he would much rather be, safe in amongst their friendly smiles and inside jokes. But instead he had to be presented with as much fanfare as possible, far away from any protection his companions could give him, stuck in awkward, stifling silence with Mollymauk. 

The tiefling was trying his best, offering light compliments on his robes, the food before them, the décor. But even his usual easy confidence was sapped by the pressure the two of them were under and Caleb couldn’t manage more than weak mumbles that were utterly lost under the music, the chatter, the smoke of the fires. Before long people started to dance, his good friend Jester being the first, rising from the table and walking across its top, nimbly avoiding people’s trenchers and tankards to Fjord and ask him to join her on the floor while their friends whistled and laughed in response. They were joined by others until there were several twirling, weaving pairs of all colours and shapes but somehow turned into the same washed out grey silhouettes by the smoke and incense, each one in its own universe. 

Caleb bit his lip thoughtfully as he watched them, suddenly aware that he really should be asking Mollymauk if he would favour him with a dance. It was expected of new couples to take to the floor, typically while some slow, haunting ballad of love flowed from the musician’s platform. That was how it always went in the books Caleb read; the couple was supposed to kiss passionately in the glow of the candlelight as the last strains of the music reverberated around them, sweet as flowers blooming. 

The thought only turned his stomach in knots. 

He must have been glancing anxiously between the dancers and Mollymauk because the tiefling suddenly reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder, making him start suddenly. 

“Would- oh, sorry,” he withdrew his hand quickly, smiling apologetically, “Would you like to dance? We can if you like, my lord?”

Caleb cleared his throat and made to rise from his chair, pulling his long, flowing velvet robes after him awkwardly, “I suppose it is expected of us.” 

Just for a second, he thought he saw something like disappointment cross Molly’s face but it was gone too quickly for him to really place, his new husband coming after him, effortless and confident in his ceremonial attire by contrast. 

The other couples parted to let them take their place in the very centre of the open space, right atop an elaborate tiled depiction of one of the great wars of Zadash. Caleb wrinkled his nose in distaste at it though he got some small amount of pleasure in stepping right on the face of the pompous looking Zadashi general as he and Molly entered an awkwardly formal hold. 

They began to sway slightly, Caleb remembering what he’d learned in dance classes from his youth that had been part of his academy training, which he’d actually rather enjoyed. Though his limbs felt stiff and awkward and unhelpful now, his heartbeat distractingly fast and his underarms disarmingly warm from having his husband of two hours close to him. 

“I... I’d hoped to see you in the plaza some evening?” Mollymauk murmured quietly, “I looked for you.” 

Caleb flushed and not from the oppressive heat of the feast all, “Ah. Yes, what with the wedding and everything, I…they’ve been watching me like hawks, I couldn’t sneak away…” 

It was only half a lie. He’d thought a lot about their evening, about their unexpected meeting at the feet of the city’s fountain. And the more Caleb thought about it, the more he’d wanted to steal away every single evening since to see if there would be that crowd of laughing children, their eyes alight with joy as the honourable Lord Tealeaf stole away from his duties and responsibilities to entertain them as he juggled his swords. And the more he’d realised he couldn’t. The more of himself he hid from his husband for as long as he possibly could, the better it would be for all of them. So, every evening since then and now, he’d pretended to read while anxiously bouncing his leg and looking out of the window, alternating between wondering what new tricks Mollymauk was pulling for his show and insisting to himself that nothing was further from his mind than his betrothed.

“Of course, I understand,” Mollymauk nods, the ornamentation in his horns catching the light as he did, the bands that clung to the curves and the spun gold that hung between their span, “It has been a lot.” 

Caleb looked down, his fingers twitching inside Mollymauk’s. In amongst it all, the robes and the prayers and the pointless feasting, he’d somehow forgotten that there was another half of this marriage, someone else who had been dreading this day as much as he had. That smiling, hopeful, laughing man from the plaza. 

“Yeah,” Caleb mumbled, holding his hand a little tighter, feeling the twin golden rings press against each other, the one that looked stunningly loud on Caleb’s thick, rough, calloused fingers and comparatively humble on Mollymauk’s bejewelled, slim, purple ones. 

Maybe he would have said something else. Maybe he wouldn’t. But it was then that the outer torches suddenly flared to life, bathing the wedding party in a sudden, harsh light, and the Grand Mage of the city rose to his feet, slightly shaky after consuming what seemed like half of the spice wine the Menagerie dignitaries had brought with them. In a slurred voice, he declared it was past time that the feast drew to a close and the bridegrooms were allowed to complete their marriage. And Caleb felt his stomach drop to the bottom of his boots.  

Molly’s hand was suddenly pulled from his own as the wedding guests descended, whirling the two bewildered men towards the stairs up to the chambers of the archmages up above, one of which had been primped and polished and prepared for Caleb and Molly’s first night as husbands. There would likely be a fresh flagon of the sweetest, thickest blackberry wine, a bowl of plump, fresh grapes so ripe the veins showed beneath the skin, fine silk hangings over a groaning featherbed, candles lit to fill the air with the scent of rose and amber and spice. A lot of effort for somewhere Caleb would rather sleep in the darkest dungeons of the palace than set one foot in. 

As they were pulled along by the raucous wedding guests, though his friends took no part, staying far back and watching their friend with anxious expressions, Caleb strained his neck for a glimpse of Mollymauk’s expression, dreading and desperate to get some indication of what would happen as soon as the heavy oak doors closed and they were left alone. But the only thing the tiefling showed was surprise and puzzlement. Maybe no one had told him of the Dwendalian tradition of carrying the bride and groom to their marriage bed. 

The room was as perfectly manicured as he’d expected and Caleb’s stomach still twisted into a tight knot at the sight of it all laid out before him. What little food he’d managed to get down during the feast threatened to come back up and make Caleb Widogast the only man in the history of the empire to utterly ruin a diplomatic treaty by retching on his betrothed during their wedding night. He tried to steady himself as best he could after he was tipped onto the bed, the room spinning around him in a whirl of formless burgundies and ivories, Mollymauk catapulted to his side a few seconds after. 

And then with a last few whistles and ribald suggestions, silence suddenly dropped down upon them with a low, final boom of the closing door. Caleb’s hands shook as he staggered to his feet and reached for the flagon on the side table, pouring two glasses of the wine, tempted to swallow them both down himself before his husband could notice. 

“My goodness,” Mollymauk sounded slightly dazed behind him, “Forgive me but I didn’t expect your people to have a wedding custom that was so…fun?”

“No offence taken,” Caleb replied, wincing internally as his voice came out thin and watery, “It is our only one, after all.” 

Mollymauk accepted his glass with a grateful smile, though his eyes lingered slightly on Caleb’s hand, how it trembled and clutched the stem of his own goblet with white knuckles. The wizard quickly busied himself with jumping to his feet and crossing the room to throw back the drapes so he didn’t have to look at those knowing, slightly pitying red eyes any more. From here, the whole city had been reduced to just a handful of dim orange lights on a field of black velvet, scattered carelessly on the foot of the hill on which the palace crouched. For a moment, Caleb’s throat tightened and he wondered what he wouldn’t give to be down there again, for everything to have gone differently, to still be just Caleb with his simple life and his dreams and his family. 

It was such a blow to think that getting everything he’d wanted back then had been what ruined him. 

“My lord?” Mollymauk spoke up gently, his voice sounding so far away. Caleb realised then that he’d been standing by the window in silence for longer than he’d meant to. 

“Forgive me,” he said quickly, swallowing the rest of his wine, so thick and sweet and sudden that it was almost metallic on the back of his tongue, leaving the goblet on the windowsill as he turned back to the bed, “How would you like to do this? I… I can disrobe for you or you could do that if you wanted…” 

“Caleb…” Molly sighed softly but the words kept spilling out of the wizard in a desperate tide, like if he just kept talking everything would work out, and the tiefling’s voice barely reached him. 

“I hope you’ll forgive my…my inexperience but I’m willing to do whatever you ask of me, as long as you instruct me in what I need to do, I…I want to please you as best I can, my lord, I just want to please you as best I can…” he continued, voice growing thinner and more anxious, his shaking getting worse. And, oh gods, there were tears building in his eyes and he couldn’t hold them back and his chest was heaving like a set of bellows and his whole face was burning and there was a numbness in the tips of his fingers…

_ “Caleb.” _

His own name always made him start a little. People called him so many things other than his given name these days, remembering it was always a slight shock. And now Mollymauk’s hands were on his own and his thumbs were running over his knuckles and those red eyes looked less like the warning colour of blood and more like the fires on top of a beacon tower. Caleb began to feel again, the pull of air in and out of his lungs and his heartbeat in his chest though he still felt dizzy and sick and small. 

“Caleb, do you want to have sex with me tonight?” Mollymauk asked in a gentle voice, a kind of honesty and openness in his expression that was so alien to Caleb but something in his chest cried out to it. 

“No,” he whispered after a long time, pained and lost, lower lip starting to tremble. 

“Then we aren’t going to,” Molly nodded firmly, as if it could be so simple. He led his staggered wizard back to the bed, hands not wandering anywhere near the fastenings of his robes, just sitting upon the petal strewn eiderdown. Instead of more wine, he poured him a cup of cool, iced water, pressing it into his hands with an expression that, for a moment, could have convinced Caleb that he was genuinely worth caring about. 

“But…isn’t it expected?” he protested in a faint voice, sounding slightly more like himself after a few swallows of the water cleared his head, “if we don’t consummate the marriage, it can be set aside and the whole treaty could fall apart?” 

Mollymauk shook his head, waving away his concerns with a hand, though the action was more soothing than dismissive. 

“Caleb, I’ll be honest? I don’t care,” he admitted shamelessly, “I don’t care about their rules and I don’t care about their goddamned treaty. I am absolutely not going to have sex with you if you aren’t ready for it. I swear, I will not touch you until you expressly ask me.” 

Caleb was stunned, looking for some sign that he was joking but there was none. There was only one question that quaked shyly on the end of his tongue, so small but he couldn’t for the life of him make sense of it. 

“Why?” 

Mollymauk tilted his head slightly, “Because…because I care about you? I care about you being happy in this marriage, Caleb, if we can manage it. I know neither of us chose this path but I want to make the best of it now we’re on it. Is that really so strange?” 

It was. But Caleb just shrugged, starting to relax a little. 

“What do we do all night then?” he asked, running his thumb along the edge of the goblet. 

“Well, what would you normally be doing of an evening?” his strange new husband asked lightly, smiling a little, “And don’t lie to me and say you’d be sleeping, I see the burned down candle ends piled on your desk.” 

Caleb laughed ruefully, bemused at how short a time someone needed to spend with him to see that, “No, I suppose I’d be reading right about now.” 

“Then…could you read to me, perhaps?” Molly offered, opening his hands, one of the many gestures he seemed to flicker through as he spoke, “I used to love to read when I was younger and I’m afraid I haven’t had the time of late?”

“Of course,” Caleb was still stunned but he decided not to question it, running with it until something inevitably came and tripped him up, “I have one with me actually, a book of folk tales…”

“Sounds wonderful,” Mollymauk murmured gently, his slight smile growing. 

And so their wedding night was spent with Molly sprawled lazily across the many cushions, idly eating grapes and offering one to Caleb occasionally, who was sat up against the headboard, eyes roving over much loved familiar words, his voice low and warm and contented as he read them aloud. Eventually his eyelids grew heavy and the lines greyed and blurred before him and then Molly’s hands guided him down and pulled the blankets over him. 

And it was over. The day Caleb had been dreading for so long was over and the future he was so uncertain of had begun. 

Though his heart felt just a little bit lighter. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being so supportive of the first chapter, I hope this second one lives up to it! Please continue to leave comments, let me know what you think, if I can do anything better. 
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr, @mollymauk-teafleak


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb and Molly grow closer, finding surprising similarities between each other as they both try to navigate a world where they don't fit in

Caleb wasn’t very good at sitting still.  

His leg itched to bounce, his spine to slouch, his fingers to drum restlessly against his kneecap. But every time he did, the painter would give him a sharp look, as if Caleb had ran up and kicked his easel over with no word of warning. Every time it happened, he could feel his husband next to him trying to hide a bemused smile.

He’d tried to protest this, trying to argue that having a portrait done was a senseless extravagance, a waste of time and money. But it was tradition apparently, that all newly married couples who dwelt in the palace be immortalised in paint and plaster and a huge, grandiose gilded frame. Caleb had tried to find the courage but, after a supercilious smirk from the Grand Mage, his argument that just because something had been done thousands of times before didn’t mean it was the right thing to do had stayed on his tongue and he’d slumped into his chair and not spoken for the rest of the meeting. He sometimes felt that the other archmages only ever allowed their little pet, quota filling commoner a certain number of spoken words per meeting and after that he was little more than a prattling child to them.

So here they were, a bitter Caleb and a faintly perplexed Mollymauk, sat in a ridiculous half- reclining pose on two of the most hideously fancy and most uncomfortable chairs in existence, getting all manner of aches and bruises while a commissioned human artist, with squinting eyes and a long pointed nose that made him look rather like a fastidious little rodent, sketched out their forms and filled them in with colour over the course of five hours. Caleb was ready to scream within five minutes.

After the hundredth or so time of being asked it the honourable archmage could please tilt his head up a little further, thank you, the wizard had been ready to snap until Mollymauk shifted beside him and soothingly squeezed his arm while flashing him a sympathetic grin, flickering back to his statuesque pose before the painter could notice.

Caleb felt a small smile tug at his own lips, his blood cooling a little bit. At least there were much worse people to be stuck posing beside.

 

The month or so since their wedding had been odd, though not in an uncomfortable way. Caleb was still getting used to having someone else there in his apartments, to there being another set of footprints, soft breathing next to him in the night, the water running in the bathroom when he wasn’t in it. Purple hairs clinging to some of his clothes, jewellery that was definitely too extravagant to belong to him left abandoned on the dresser, a scent of lilies and jasmine lingering in the air even when he was alone.

It was new, which meant it automatically made Caleb feel dizzy. But there were good bits about it too.

Sometimes there would be a pot of tea waiting for him on his desk beside all the books, steaming contentedly. Mollymauk would make light comments over dinner, not seeming to mind that Caleb would mostly read through the meal, making light fun of the people he’d encountered and the things he’d done that would always make Caleb laugh and feel as though he was being entrusted with a secret. The warmth of another person beside him in the night was a comfort too, especially the moments where Molly’s hand would stray as he slept to rest on Caleb’s arm or his shoulder. The first time that had happened, Caleb had been tempted to gently shrug it away, Molly would never know to mind. But somehow he hadn’t. Somehow he’d started to wish for it.

True to his word, Mollymauk had never expected anything more than Caleb was ready to give him. Right at the start, he’d even offered to remain in the guest suite that he’d been allocated back when he was simply a visiting dignitary and not a lord of Zadash by marriage. Touched but understanding that it would only raise suspicions and but him more in the council’s firing line, Caleb had declined and his humble apartments were slowly starting to fill up with all of Molly’s things, somehow slotting in beside his own with minimal disruption.

Caleb found it strange how two lives that were so startlingly different could be stitched together so easily. Next to Molly, he felt like rough, cracked leather next to the sheerest, most elegant silk and yet their peculiar patchwork seemed to be coming together, slowly and tentatively but all the same.

“I am finished, my lords,” the painter announced, waking Caleb up from his own thoughts, “Your portrait is complete.”

He turned around the canvas far bigger than himself, for the two of them to see. Caleb didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Molly apparently did, as he stifled a laugh with a cough that quickly turned into effusive praise that seemed to please the artist, even as hollow as it sounded to Caleb. He just stayed staring at the painting, feeling his heart sink further and further.

In short, they looked utterly ridiculous. If it were just a bad painting, Caleb probably just have giggled along with Molly and shrugged it off as a waste of the council’s money but it wasn’t that simple. The two figures were so far removed from the actual people they were supposed to portray that it was more caricature than portrait. In the painting, Archmage Widogast had the most smug, most haughty expression that clearly didn’t belong on a face as long and drawn as his. It was as if the painter had pulled the expression Caleb detested most right off the face of the Grand Mage and pasted it onto a thicker, more farcically masculine version of Caleb himself. Mollymauk looked slightly better though his natural colourfulness clearly hadn’t translated well into the more traditional, baroque Zadashi style, like hastily trying to cut a ball gown into a pair of overalls. The painter hadn’t even done most of his tattoos, completely inventing imaginary long sleeves to cover his forearms and a high necked shirt to cover his chest.

They looked like two people who had absolutely no business being together, being in the palace even. Under the direction of those in charge, they’d been forcibly remoulded into the people they wanted them to be, not who they actually were, and the result was a depressing misery.

“Well, at least we got a laugh out of it?” Molly chuckled as soon as the door closed behind the artist, “Though I swear, that abomination is not hanging in our apartment. Shall we fake a mortal accident? What do you think, we accidentally left it too close to a candle and it went up in flames or oh! Maybe Frumpkin thought it was a new toy for him and clawed it to shreds…”

He didn’t see. He didn’t see the spite that lingered behind the ridiculousness. Of course he didn’t, he hadn’t been here long enough, he’d been born into this life, he’d never felt out of place in this world.

“I’m going to go to the library,” Caleb mumbled flatly, unable to even try and sound normal.

Molly’s smile died, “Oh…okay, love. I’ll see you for dinner?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he was already at the door, already letting it close behind him.

***

There had been revels going on through the city right from sunrise and even now, at sunset, the faint shouts and songs and even the low booms of firework spells still reached the palace.

Caleb could read the wistful expression on his husband’s face as he paused in the process of getting ready for the ball, standing by the window and watching as flowers of fire and light and noise bloomed over the city at the base of the hill. He had no doubt that his high-spirited, colourful husband would be much happier down in amongst the citizens, drinking ale and watching the parade and the fireworks and dancing in the streets. Certainly happier than he would be at the archmages’ own celebrations, a lavish ball with only delicate flutes of champagne and expensive canapés and dignified conversation, in the room they’d been married in just a few months ago though considerably more pomp was being thrown behind this event. Distinguished people were coming from all over the realms to attend the performance masquerading as a party. Caleb was already sourly wondering what new deals and agreements would be made over the caviar and wine that would suck even more funds out of the charitable foundations he’d been arguing fruitlessly for at all the recent meetings.

“Your people seem to really love this day,” Mollymauk murmured suddenly, making Caleb lift his head from trying to tie his cravat to very limited success. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to his husband as they’d been dressing, only now could he see how elaborate his dress actually was. It was tight, clinging to his body, adorned with so much gold thread that it seemed entirely made of spun metal and over the top was a loose, flowing curtain of almost see through purple silk that would brush the floor when he danced. His jewellery was just as elaborate, amethysts in a tight, almost lace like web around his neck and piercings dripping with gold, arching right up to his horns like the metal had taken on a life of its own and grown like vines.

“It’s one of our most important feast days,” he nodded in agreement, moving over to stand by his husband at the window. Zadash really did look beautiful from up here, a maze alive with colour and light from the many lanterns hung high the streets and the folk in bright costumes wandering through the merriments, “It celebrates the city’s founding.”

Molly frowned, trying to remember, “You did tell me, didn’t you…it was the one in the book about the young elf woman lost in the woods who found the spring, right? And she had her family there and the city grew…”

“You were listening!” Caleb smiled, teasingly.

“I only fell asleep towards the end,” Molly rolled his eyes, grinning, “I got the gist of it.”

“But yes, that’s it in essence. Everyone in the city gets a day off and there’s music and a parade and all the children dress as folk heroes and hold treasure hunts all through the streets.”

“Sounds fun,” the wistfulness deepened. Caleb could easily picture Mollymauk in his gilded mask and his peacock feathers, part of the parade as he juggled his scimitars atop a cart strewn with flowers, running with the children and directing them subtly to where the gold coins were hidden in the nooks and crannies of the alleyways, complimenting all the regular attendees to his shows on their costumes and re-enacting the tales from which they’d sprung, playing the parts of the dragon or the monster to make the children laugh.

“Maybe…” Caleb bit his lip, “Maybe we need only show our faces tonight? Have a drink and then make our excuses and go into town? No one would know us in costume.”

Molly’s eyes brightened for a few moments before he slumped a little and sighed, “No. No, this is our place now. I need to stop pulling stunts like that, I promised the lords back home I would. Time to grow up and be old and boring…”

Caleb smiled slightly, reaching out and taking Molly’s hand. He was getting much better at that, offering touch and accepting it in return. The whole concept was really starting to grow on him; it was almost like every brush of Molly’s hand against his own, every time Molly would let him brush his hair of a night because the movement of the brush through his long, silken curls was comforting to him, every time the tiefling would squeeze his shoulder or brush a stray lock behind his ears or nudge him to punctuate some whispered joke filled a hole inside his stomach.

“You could never be boring, Mollymauk,” he said gently.

Molly seemed touched at that, his smile growing back. He turned to Caleb, his hands gently flickering up to redo his cravat correctly, “Flatterer. Here, let me fix that for you…”

He tied it with effortless elegance whereas Caleb had been struggling with it for what felt like an hour. And as soon as it was done, he leaned forward and kissed him, just softly, just swiftly, on the cheek.

“We should head down there, don’t want to be late…” the tiefling whirled away carelessly to give himself a last check in the mirror.

Leaving his husband standing rooted to the floor, his cheek burning where the kiss had landed, mouth slightly open. As another spell infused rocket whistled and exploded over in the distance, Caleb felt much the same sensation in his chest.

 

The elaborate decorations that had arched overhead when they’d entered the ballroom, the canopy of the traditional blue roses that ridged the ceiling like the spine of a creature hunched over in slumber, the scented candles drifting atop levitation spells that moved though the room like lily pads on an invisible pond, the behemoth of a crystal chandelier that hung over the heads of the guests, it was all starting to look rather sinister as the evening wore on and the light of the sunset dimmed. Everything seemed to have an edge to it, the sharp lances of crystal lengthened and became more pointed, like teeth and the elaborate dress of the guests looked pale and washed out, greying, ghost like. Empty glasses lay abandoned on tables or the windowsills, on their sides or lopsided, as tipsy as the guests who’d drained them. The laughs were growing more strained, the conversations thinner as the night grew older and the alcohol was drunk more liberally.

Caleb was more than ready to retire and head up to bed. Maybe the fireworks would still be going on and he and Mollymauk could watch them from the comfort of their blankets. He’d made his limp circuits of the room, standing the fringes of conversations, nodding and making noises of agreement. He’d introduced himself to all the people who he knew would be expecting it, gave rehearsed, pleasant answers to many questions about his wedding and more enthusiastic ones to the few about his work. Though of course the other lords and ladies had the standard response of looking slightly alarmed as Caleb launched into descriptions of his studies into crystal refraction to amplify magical traces and then pointedly not ask him any more about that or make their excuses and offload their conversation on whoever was standing nearby that they didn’t like all that much. He’d done everything that was expected of him and now he was eager to flee.

He looked around and managed to find Mollymauk, over the other side of the room, holding a conversation with several other people who looked incredibly important, looking as at ease with them as could be. The kiss came back into his mind as he weaved through the crowd towards him. It was a little distressing that one brief second was commandeering his mind so completely, making his face feel hot and his feet want to fidget and his heartbeat pick up. Caleb shoved it out as mind as best he could as he eventually gravitated to his husband’s side.

“Hello, love,” Molly beamed at him as soon as his red eyes settled on him. They were always a little more demonstrative in public, keeping up the image as it were. But then again, Mollymauk did give pretty much everyone he met a pet name.

“Ready to go?” Caleb asked quietly, hopefully, giving him a tired smile.

He got a flash of an exaggeratedly relieved look in response and a squeeze of his hand, a silent pledge that he’d be ready in five minutes.

“You’ve met my husband, haven’t you…” Molly continued the conversation smoothly, making Caleb feel part of it the way no one else had all night. He was so much better at this than his husband, at talking to these people and blending in, acting like one of them.

Caleb felt a little awful thinking it but he could see why so many people who met his husband assumed he was just another privileged little lordling with more money than personality, who’d never had to develop beyond the surface level because his title would open every single door he ever encountered. He could see why they only saw the easy, airy party boy in him, why they loved to swap gossip about his extravagant orgies. It was only after spending time with Mollymauk that it became clear how much of it was simply an act. More clever than any of these people put together, he very deliberately managed the façade of the archetypal young lord while keeping all of his true self, his wit and kindness and perceptiveness, hidden away where they couldn’t reach it.

But Caleb was allowed in. And he was slowly starting to realise just how much he appreciated it.

The older woman was talking now, something about the opera house she’d founded back in her own city of Bladegarden that actually sounded quite interesting, maybe he and Mollymauk could go…

“…utterly ridiculous, the fact that they even let such a creature through the gates is a disgrace. I mean, not only does he frequent whores, he dresses like one too…”

Caleb went very stiff and very still. The voice came from somewhere behind them, no doubt meant to be a conspiratorial whisper though swelled with drink and slurred, but the words and the tone of derision was unmistakeable.

Another voice, though the spite and the wine in it was twin to the first, “…made a freak show out of the institution of marriage. That sort of thing might be acceptable on the Menagerie Coast but we’re a little more civilised here…”

“…should never have allowed it, I have no idea what the Grand Mage is thinking. How are they supposed to produce an heir, what’s even the point? An utter farce. Widogast must be ashamed to even leave his room…”

“Prancing, preening little thing. Half the lords will be laughing in their cups at us, having someone like that around…”

“…they’re all descended from demons, that lot, they can’t be trusted. We’ve let a devil into our midst and invited him to infect us as he pleases with his deviant behaviour. The empire will crumble within the year, just you wait…”

The hand in Caleb’s disappeared suddenly, yanked away before he could even try and hold on.

“Please excuse me, my lady,” Molly’s voice was flat and stony cold, killing off any hope Caleb had clung to that he hadn’t heard the voices. Quick as he’d ever seen him move, the tiefling turned and ducked into the crowd, disappearing into the press.

Caleb swallowed back a cry of his name, mumbling his own hasty apologies and making to follow his husband. Though before he did, he whirled to find the sources of the two voices. He wasn’t surprised to see them, two of the other archmages, two who had wanted to cancel the betrothal as soon as they realised they’d sent another man, two who had opposed Caleb’s appointment to the council in the first place, two who raised their hands to vote against any measure Caleb proposed before he was even finished speaking.

Caleb narrowed his eyes and exhaled sharply, muttering a word as he did, walking away as soon as he saw a faint pule of light emanate from the glasses the two men held. No one seemed to notice.

Just as he reached the door he assumed Mollymauk had fled through, there was a sudden horrified shout from the crowd and a sickening, strangled noise, accompanied by a wet slapping sound as two of the archmages, for seemingly no reason at all, suddenly found their tongues lengthening grotesquely and springing from their mouths to roll across the marbled floor like a grisly carpet. All after just a sip of their drinks.

Caleb allowed himself a small smirk before he left the ballroom.

***

“Caleb? My love?”

The wizard started a little, he hadn’t even heard the door open. That happened a lot when he got so engrossed in his work that everything else seemed to fade away to an easily ignored static in the back of his mind. Often Frumpkin would jump into his lap while his master was in full flow and scare him so badly that he’d tip backwards right out of his chair.

“Oh, hello,” he turned in his seat to see Mollymauk standing just a little ways behind him, hovering close to his husband’s desk. He’d changed out of the ridiculous traditional robes they’d been given to wear for the painting- Caleb had balled his own up as tight as possible and thrown them against the wall- and was now dressed more simply in fawn coloured leggings and a knitted tunic in stripes of warm browns, oranges and greens that Caleb had no doubt he’d made himself.

Molly’s gentle smile only made his husband feel more awkward, like a small child who’d thrown a tantrum and now had to explain himself. Molly had pointedly not approached him since yesterday after they’d sat for that disastrous painting, had only made the lightest conversation over dinner and kept his distance as they’d slept, taking a long, long bath and only coming to bed after Caleb was dozing. It was obvious that he was giving his husband space to cool off and bring up whatever had upset him in his own time, an obviousness that Caleb had ignored, embarrassed and anxious.

Clearly Mollymauk had decided to take matters into his own hands.

“You’ve been working for a long time,” the tiefling raised an eyebrow delicately, “Fancy taking a break? Your friends are all in the parlour?”

Caleb’s eyes drifted to the pile of notes on his desk, the ones he’d made frantically as he’d been carrying out his experiments and now had to decipher and make into a formal report. Even after working all afternoon, he was barely a quarter of the way through.

Almost as if he’d read his mind, Molly sighed, “Please? It’ll only be for a little while, I promise.”

A little taken aback, Caleb tried to think when the last time was that someone had shown so much concern for him. His friends had long since given up on reducing the time he spent scribbling away at his desk or in his lab to a more human friendly level, preferring to just pick up the pieces by having Fjord lift him into bed and Nott tuck the blankets around him and Jester heal his headaches after he would crash out in his chair.

“I mean…yeah, okay,” Caleb finally said, seeing no other available answer. Maybe he did owe Molly a little, after staying so stubbornly clammed up all night. He tried for a smile, “Maybe one game of chess…”

Molly wrinkled his nose and groaned. Caleb had been trying to teach him chess for a week or so, the game not being very popular on the coast, and the tiefling had quickly developed a vendetta against it, refusing to call anything a game if it involved this much thinking and remembering facts.

“Or maybe you could finally make good on your promise to teach me your best drinking games in return?” Caleb smiled, nudging his husband playfully as he got up and shook some feeling back into his legs.

His husband laughed, “Oh, all in good time. But I have something else to show you tonight.”

 

Caleb blinked in surprise as he walked into the small parlour in his apartments, where they often spent their free time in between Fjord and Beau’s patrols and Jester’s stints in the healer’s house and Nott clearing away whatever messes she’d manage to make in the lab trying to find inventive ways to cook up her acids. His friends were flopped over the furniture as they always were, across the comfortable old chairs of cracked leather and overflowing stuffing that Caleb had picked up from antique shops in the city and handmade blankets Jester had provided a long time ago during her macramé phase.

But there was a large blanket covering something tall and rather square in the middle of the room.

“Is…is this that intervention about the amount of coffee I drink you’ve been threatening me with?” Caleb felt rather lost, every pair of eyes in the room suddenly on him.

“No, no,” Mollymauk came up behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder, “As necessary as that sounds, that’s not it. I asked your lovely Jester to made a few…amendments to our portrait. So it better reflects you and me. Jester, if you would, my love?”

“Oh…” Caleb murmurs softly, looking over just as Jester swept the cloth away with a bright trilling ‘tad dah’ and her usual sunny fanfare.

He’d known what a talented artist his good friend was. But he hadn’t realised that she had enough skill to actually make him look beautiful.

Instead of a stiff, unnatural pose on awkward furniture, the two of them were sat on the sofas of the room they were currently stood in, perfect paint recreations that somehow managed to capture exactly how comfortable they were, how the smooth old leather felt underneath his hands, even how they smelt of must and home. There was a fire roaring in one corner, so real it almost seemed to flicker as he gazed at it, bathing the two of them in light, as well as the bookcase behind them, all the titles even done in minute calligraphy. The painted Molly looked as relaxed and confident as he always did in real life, every single inch of his beautiful tattoos lovingly recreated, as well as the perpetual kindness in the smiles he gave his friends.

And Caleb would himself looking at a much more comfortable, much more content version of himself. In his own clothes, his old motheaten brown jumper and patched trousers, with Frumpkin wound around his neck and his hair tied back in a leather thong. His smile was small but comfortable and didn’t look out of place on his face at all, the way smiles often did. His shoulders slumped, relaxed, his eyes were bright and alive and confident in a quiet sort of way.

And his hand rested lightly on top of Mollymauk’s.

Unsurprisingly, Caleb felt tears slide down his face and the wind rush out of his lungs as Jester threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. He returned the embrace as fiercely as he could, trying to show the gratitude he knew he’d never be able to fully express in words. As the painting shattered into colourful fractals before his streaming eyes, he realised what he saw on that canvas, just what Jester and Molly had been able to show him, why it made his chest feel so warm.

Caleb didn’t see himself as he was now. Instead he saw a future. A warm, safe, happy future with his friends and his new husband. It was the first time he’d been able to see that maybe everything was actually going to turn out okay for him.

 

After deciding that the inaugural hanging of the painting required some drinks to celebrate, the friends trouped out towards the palace’s cellars. But just before they joined them, Caleb reached out and tapped Molly on the shoulder, keeping him back for a moment in the fresh silence.

“Mollymauk, I…” the words caught in his throat, the tears still in his eyes. Caleb cried so infrequently, it was always a while before he could stop once he got going, “I just…I can’t thank you enough.”

The tiefling shook his head, reaching out and gripping Caleb’s arms reassuringly, “No thanks necessary, darling. What they did with the first one…it was disgusting.” A flicker of anger crossed his face, like a bitter taste had entered his mouth, “The way they treat you is just disgusting.”

There it was again, the unfamiliar and dizzying feeling of someone else caring about him. Maybe he was going to have to start getting used to that.

“I mean…it’s okay, I’m used to it. It’s always been like this…”

“But not anymore,” Mollymauk smiled defiantly, “As long as I’m here, you have someone in your corner. Got that, Caleb?”

“Yeah,” the wizard smiled, eyes meeting his husband’s, “I got that.”

***

Mollymauk hadn’t gone far. He didn’t know the layout of the palace very well just yet and Caleb imagined he didn’t want to get lost.

The guests had been handing their coats and furs off carelessly to dutiful servants who’d then hung them up with painstaking care in a nearby closet, thin but deep, disappearing off into shadow and close enough to the ballroom that the music could be heard faintly, the efforts of the flutists and violinists reduced to vague mumblings and the chatter to an indistinct buzz. It was here that Caleb found his husband, slumped to the floor and leaning miserably against a row of coats.

In the low light, the tear tracks on his cheeks were silvered rivers. Caleb felt his stomach lurch; he’d never, ever seen his husband cry. It filled him with disquiet, with grief, with fury, making his hands start to shake where they rested awkwardly on the doorframe.

“Mollymauk?” he made the word an offer, willing to reluctantly withdraw if his husband didn’t want him there. He wasn’t good at comforting others, it just wasn’t in his nature but despite all that, his heart ached to at least try.

“Hey,” the tiefling grunted thickly, eyes gazing up at the ceiling, “Look, I’m sorry if I made a scene…”

“Not at all,” Caleb shook his head quickly. That had been his own doing, “Can I come in?”

Molly gave a shrug of assent, shuffling over so the wizard could slump against the wall and slide down beside him. He still didn’t look at him, eyes staying upturned to the shadows though Caleb was fairly certain that wasn’t what he was truly seeing.

Often, Caleb found the best way to approach a situation was to stay silent. So, unsure of any alternative approach, that’s what he did, simply offering his closeness and the warmth of his body next to Mollymauk’s. No one was more surprised than him when it actually worked.

After a few moments, Molly let out a long sigh and wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his dress, “Believe me, I don’t like letting those assholes get to me like this. I’ve had stuff like that said about me so many times and…and I try so hard…”

Caleb reached over and threaded his fingers through Molly’s, face tight and pained with sympathy. Still, he didn’t say anything.

“But…gods, I just feel so homesick,” Molly’s voice broke like glass and fresh tears budded in his eyes, defying his efforts to wipe them away, “I miss the beaches. I miss my friends. I miss the sunsets and my bed and my home. I…I just hate realising that I can’t ever have that back and now I’m here where I’m not even wanted…”

“I want you here, Mollymauk,” Caleb insisted softly, squeezing his fingers, “Please don’t forget that.”

The tiefling managed a shaky smile that looked more like a grimace in the low light, “I know, Caleb, thank you…I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be offloading all this on you, when you didn’t want this any more than I did and you’ve been so welcoming.”

Caleb shuffled closer, feeling the silk of Molly’s train whisper under his knees, now close enough that he could smell his perfume and hear his raspy breathing, “No…I didn’t want this, Molly, but you’ve…you’ve actually made it the best thing that’s ever happened to me here?”

Molly’s red eyes, shining and shimmering until they looked like dancing candleflames, turned to Caleb, surprised, “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Caleb grinned crookedly as he realised just how true it was, “It’s so strange, I feel as though I know you better and you understand me better than people I’ve known for years. I feel safe around you. I feel…happy. And I know those others might not want you here but I do, I love everything about you that they’re scared of. Cos that’s all it is, Molly, you tear down all the ridiculous ideas they have and show them the things they want to believe aren’t true so they decide they hate you when really…they’re scared of you.”

“Little old me, huh?” Molly chuckled, thickly.

“Exactly!” Caleb nodded, “And…no matter what they think, as long as I’m here…you’ve got someone in your corner. Got it?”

This time his smile was sure and genuine and his fingers clasped Caleb’s in return, “I got it. Thank you, my love.”

“Believe me, Molly, the pleasure is all mine,” Caleb breathed a soft sigh of relief to see that smile return, “I’d say we’re done with the festivities tonight. Shall we steal a bottle of champagne, go upstairs and read and watch the fireworks? I think they’re still going on…”

The tiefling smiled and rose to his feet, a little shaky but he had Caleb to cling to, clearly having no intention of letting go of his arm, “I’d like that very much, Caleb.”

 

Mollymauk looked surprised at the commotion coming from the ballroom as they passed it on their way to the stairs , his ears pricking up, “What on earth is going on in there?”

“I have no idea,” Caleb shrugged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay for this chapter! I'm so glad you guys are enjoying it, please consider leaving a comment and letting me know what you think about the story so far and where you'd like to see it go. I'm also on Tumblr @mollymauk-teafleak, always eager to accept your feedback and head canons and fit requests!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb continues his life with Mollymauk, each of them exposing a little more of themselves to each other as they go. Little by little, word by word, they learn and grow side by side. 
> 
> Until it falls apart.

Nightmares had become almost like old friends to Caleb. 

Not welcome friends, by any means, but familiar ones at least. Ones he knew by name. They’d become like his most favourite books, like the one full of folk tales from the mountains or the one that outlined every one of the discovered elements with its properties and uses in arcana. He knew their words inside and out, he knew where the pages were bevelled and creased, he knew where the spines cracked to make them fall open on that exact page if you dropped them. And it was the exact same with the nightmares, to the point where he could recite the steps of each one by heart. 

Caleb had long ago given up on trying to fight them. That had only earned him a throat raw from shouting, sweat soaked sheets, scars on his palms where his nails had dug in and drawn blood; dull, pale mornings where he’d jerked awake screaming ‘ _ get them out, get them out’  _ to nothing but memories. 

It had been much easier to just submit. 

Now there was nothing to betray him in the mornings but shadows under his eyes and, by this point, he didn’t think anyone would recognise him without those. He could lie perfectly still all night with only his pupils flickering wildly behind his eyelids and fingers tight in the blankets, just clinging on until it was over. Caleb knew better than to ask for any more than that. 

It had been one of few things to be relieved about, concerning his marriage. He couldn’t imagine having to explain away shrieking night terrors like he used to get when he was younger, coming up with a different excuse every single night and only worsening his hatred of sleep. Caleb had always been so careful to keep the very worst of it from common knowledge, out of the pool of palace gossip traded between the servants that always seemed to drift into the ears of the mages. Though of course he faced a far greater risk than the other mages, his secrets went far deeper than who no longer slept in the same bed as their wife, who had been receiving clandestine visitors from one of the brothels downtown, who kept bags of gold coins under their mattress. 

Caleb’s secret could well land him back in the asylum, back behind rusted iron bars, this time with no hope of ever being let out. And he knew he couldn’t survive that again. 

That knowledge was enough for the idea of sharing his bed with another person to set his teeth on edge, just thinking about that one possible night where things could slip, where something might change and he’d lose his control. Where he’d jolt awake into that ghastly, sinking few moments where he wouldn’t remember his own name and his limbs weren’t his own, to find a horrified face staring back at him in fear. And what might happen after that was a nightmare all its own. 

Of course, that was back when his partner was a faceless, nameless figure, eternally displeased and disgusted by him like all the rest of the nobles seemed to be. Before his husband materialised as Lord Mollymauk Tealeaf of the Menagerie coast. Lord Mollymauk of the easy smiles and gentle touches and affectionate nicknames, Caleb’s chess student and enthusiastic audience to his work and personal stylist of late, despite his protests. One of Caleb’s closest friends. 

As firm as he still was on not sharing anything about what he’d done, who he’d been, before he was an archmage, as tightly closed as some doors were and forever would be locked, Caleb didn’t think Molly would turn him over to the asylum if he found him in the throes of a night terror. 

So when they started to share a bed together, it was less a source of terror and more of vague bemusement, slowly getting used to something as you took those first few shaky steps and realised how pleasant it actually was. It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, like continental drift. Every night they seemed to get just a little closer to each other, their marriage beginning with them on opposite sides of the wide featherbed but somehow the next night they were just an arm’s length apart, by the next Molly’s tail brushed Caleb’s leg gently, by the next Caleb could smell the mint on Molly’s breath and the lemon wash in his hair. And now arms wound around chests, a tail wrapped around a middle like it was some kind of anchor, a head rested against a shoulder, carefully placed to avoid the points of a set of curving horns. 

If he wanted to, Caleb could have made excuses to himself, saying it was simply because the nights were getting colder or it was the natural slope of the under stuffed mattress. But whenever the part of himself that was still small and scared and unsure would try and throw these excuses over those nights spent in Molly’s arms, how threadbare they really were became so obvious. 

Caleb wasn’t even sure why he kept trying to lie to himself. And it made him wonder, worry, just how long he’d been doing it. 

And now it had become such a part of his life, having those long, strong arms wrapped around him and the naturally borderline feverish heat of his skin pressed against his own and his gentle, soft snores, the one time Caleb’s eyelids fluttered open and he broke out of his nightmare’s paralysis to find it gone, it was a shock. 

He sat up a little, frowning at the rumpled blankets and pool of moonlight where his husband should have been. Looking around, he would have guessed it was the very earliest hours of the morning, the silent, heavy hours when nothing felt quite real because the world knew you were supposed to be sleeping and resented your presence. There was moonlight slipping in through a crack in the curtains, a harsh, flash of white in a room where the rest was grey static, the colours sucked out of everything like they only came along with the morning light. And no Mollymauk. 

Frumpkin came along though, appearing from seemingly nowhere, one of the many nooks and crannies he hid himself in whenever his master didn’t need him and hopping up onto the bed with a bright trill. Caleb rubbed behind his ears absentmindedly, still searching the room, willing his eyeballs to wake up and focus and forget what they’d been seeing just a moment before. The blackened house ringed by flames, the flickering, dancing, mocking red…

His throat tightened. He needed to find Mollymauk.

“Have you seen him?” Caleb asked Frumpkin, burying his fingertips in his burnt ember fur, sapping some comfort from that, the soft contact. 

Frumpkin blinked his huge, blue eyes slowly in that way that unnerved everyone else apart from Caleb and sprung from the bed, turning around to make sure his master was staggering from the blankets and following him dutifully. Many of the archmages had told him he was a fool to choose a cat, one of the most arrogant, peculiar and individualistic animals available, as his familiar. Sometimes he wondered if they were right. 

Relief washed over him like warm water when he saw Molly sitting cross legged in the satin expanse of the chaise lounge they kept in the corner of their dressing area that, more often than not, was where Caleb threw his clothes and notebooks when he was too exhausted after working in the lab to do anything more involved. The tiefling had shifted it all to one side and seated himself in the dead centre, also dragging over the low coffee table they kept in the middle of the room and would often be covered in all the jewellery Molly had tried on and decided against before he left the apartment.

But now there was a candle placed on the corner, a tall, thin candle of a deep purple wax flecked with gold, that spilt enough light into the small space so some colour could return to the world and everything could feel a little more real. A crystal glass dish sat on the other corner with a miniature bushel of dried herbs smoking away and flooding Caleb with the thick scent of cedar and sage and bay as soon as he stepped through the doorway. And in the centre of the table, framed in the dark, antique wood, were a set of elegantly illuminated cards, black but with a holographic element to them that made their gorgeous inscriptions shimmer in the flickering light. 

And Molly sat before it all, hands open, palms upward, eyes lightly closed. From his fingers dangled a thin, gold chain, one of the ones he’d always worn but, Caleb realised, he’d never noticed in amongst the much gaudier jewels that adorned his neck and collarbone. He was dressed just as he’d dressed for bed, in a sheer, short nightshirt that (more recently) had been making Caleb’s cheeks feel hot when he saw them, for reasons he had yet to place. But that was all, his chest was bare, his horns were bare, his wrists, ears, ankles, all the places the tiefling would usually take every opportunity to hang adornments from. That was more striking than anything, than even the nightshirts that would graze his thighs whenever he raised his hands to free his hair from the collar and leave Caleb sweating even if the fire had gone out. Molly looked so young without his jewels, so vulnerable, bathed in the light of the candle. 

All this Caleb absorbed in half a heartbeat, the pause before he skittered backwards awkwardly, painfully aware that he’d blundered into something he wasn’t meant to see. 

But of course, being Caleb, he careened straight back into the doorframe with a loud thump that utterly shattered the peace of the small square that had clearly been so carefully cultivated. Molly’s eyes flickered open and all Caleb could do was look back, face tense with shame and apology. 

“Caleb?” Molly murmured, sounding vague and far away, like he’d just been woken from a dream. 

“I’m so sorry,” Caleb burst out, wishing with all his heart that he’d just stayed with his nightmares and not intruded, “I didn’t…I was just wondering where you’d gotten to, I’m so sorry…” 

More awareness broke over Molly’s face and he unwound himself, rising up. He didn’t look angry, which was some small relief, in fact, it was more fear that coloured his red eyes. Already looking much younger, he seemed to shrink in front of Caleb’s eyes. 

“It’s okay,” he bit down on his lip, something Caleb was starting to realise he only did when he was truly put out of sorts which was, of course, very rare for the young lord. 

Confused, convinced he still had some amends to make, Caleb stumbled on, feeling more and more like he wasn’t fully grasping the situation, feeling rather like someone who’d been shoved into the spotlight and didn’t know all his lines. 

“I’ll let you get back to it, whatever you’re doing, I’m sorry, I…it seems lovely, I didn’t mean to intrude, as long as you’re okay…”

Molly frowned, “It? You…you don’t…you don’t know what this is?” This seemed to mean the little table, the candle, the cards, the aura of total calm that Caleb had broken so completely. 

The wizard could only fidget where he stood, feet uncomfortably cold on the tiled floor, and confess, “Should I?”

As confused and bumbling as it felt coming out of his mouth, apparently it was the right answer as relief flooded Mollymauk’s face. 

He quickly turned to his little array, blowing out the candle and gathering the cards into one pile, stifling the stick of herbs, “Okay…okay, if you could just…forget? If you could just forget what you saw, I swear it won’t happen again, we don’t need to say any more about it…”

Caleb felt the exact opposite, Mollymauk’s manner distressing him quietly. He seemed furtive, afraid. The wizard had known people look at him like that before, a long time ago, and he had no desire to see it again. Least of all from his husband. 

“Molly, whatever it is, you know you can trust me?” he murmured quietly, arms wrapped around himself, “You don’t need to be scared. Not here. Not with me.” 

Mollymauk stopped, looking up, clutching the cards to his chest in a way that showed Caleb how precious they were to him and helped him slowly begin to understand. 

“You don’t need to be scared,” he said again, letting his eyes hold Molly’s and not let go the way he usually would, saying the words he’d so often wished he could hear from someone else. 

Eventually, something in Molly seemed to let go, a wall seemed to come down. 

“I was…praying.”

The expression of serenity, the herbs, the candle seemed to make a little more sense now. Caleb nodded slowly, “Praying? I…you didn’t seem like someone who prayed a lot?” 

Molly laughed drily, shrugging, “Yeah, I know.”

Caleb held his tongue, waiting to see if his husband would volunteer any more, the heavily scented smoke still hanging in the air. 

“I pray to the Moonweaver,” Molly explained after a brief pause, looking down at the cards in his hand, “I always have. Ever since I was young.”

Caleb felt a tightness in his chest as the last piece fell into place. The Moonweaver was one of the many deities the Dwendalian Empire had crushed beneath their heel as they’d swept across the lands they now claimed they’d always been destined to own. Prayer to her, and many others, had been outlawed and made treason to the very values of the Empire. Temple doors had been shattered inwards, statues had been beheaded, scared pools and oils had been emptied onto the floor, priests and clerics had been imprisoned and executed alongside their gods. The scourging had been so thorough that Caleb doubted anyone in Zadash who hadn’t read the histories he had even remembered the name of the Moonweaver and the other homeless deities. 

Of course, the Menagerie Coast still kept their own laws and their own gods. But Mollymauk wasn’t in the Menagerie Coast any more, he’d been traded by his own country to this young, brutal empire. And his lordship, the ring on his finger, wouldn’t save him if he was caught praying to the Moonweaver. 

“Mollymauk...” Caleb sighed softly, though he stopped, a sudden bitterness taking root in his mouth. 

There had been a second, a split second but there nonetheless, where Mollymauk had honestly believed that Caleb would turn him in, where he’d been nothing to his husband but another ruthless, lawful Dwendalian. 

The thought made something inside him twist, a memory very deliberately forgotten. The heavy fabric of a uniform. Old oaths. A black house ringed by flames. 

Molly, ever able to read people’s faces as easily as his husband read books, followed his train of thought and flushed with embarrassment and shame, tail drooping and head lowering. 

After a long, long moment, Caleb knelt. Molly’s necklace had slipped from his fingers in surprise and was pooled on the floor, all it’s glitter lost when the candle blew out, and he gathered it up, holding it out to Molly and bringing it into the moonlight. 

“When I walked in, before I interrupted you…which I’m still so very sorry about, by the way…” he said, “You looked so peaceful. You looked happy. I’d never, ever take that away from you, Mollymauk. I can’t find that connection with any god, not anymore, and…honestly, all I can do is admire you for being able to.” 

Molly looked for a moment like he might cry as he reached out and took the necklace, which Caleb could now see had a tiny opal moon hanging from it, the connection there to follow for those who looked close enough. Not that Molly let anyone in Zadash get that close. No one but Caleb. The tiefling’s voice was just a feathery whisper as he thanked him, winding the necklace back around his neck, his whole body seeming to breathe a sigh of relief once it was back against his skin. 

“You’ve been doing this for a while?” Caleb observed, noticing now how the candle and sage brush were half burned down, the worn edges on the cards as Molly gathered then back into a leather bag. 

“Every night,” Molly nodded as he stowed it all away in one of the upper sections of their wardrobe, hidden from anyone who might give it a cursory glance. 

That certainly gave Caleb a start, “Every night? How didn’t I notice?” 

Molly gave him a little smile, sad and shy, “I usually go up to the roof. The only reason I couldn’t tonight was because it was raining.” 

It was true, a soft but constant rain had been falling on the city all day. Caleb could remember the look of disappointment that had briefly flickered across Molly’s face when he’d looked out of the window just as they’d been preparing for bed to see it still falling. He’d written it off as the tiefling simply not liking the colder weather. 

He reached out and threaded his fingers through Mollymauk’s. It was a sudden gesture, one he couldn’t remember deciding to make, but there it was. Molly only smiled and squeezed his fingers in return. 

“Tell me about her? Tell me about the Moonweaver?” 

It was half intellectual curiosity, half a desire to connect with Molly about this part of him he’d been thinking he had to hide. It seemed to please him all the same, a dreamy look entered his red eyes as they made their way back to the bed. 

“Well…” Molly seemed to consider his words carefully as he sat languidly on the blankets when, in any other circumstance, he’d let them run on and on unthinkingly, “She’s of the night and the autumn, a beautiful young girl with moonlight in her hair. She’s all trickery and illusion, not like the other gods who judge and condemn you, she’s fun. And she creates shadows from her fingertips to conceal lovers on their trysts.”

“Oh,” Caleb willed his face not to turn pink but he could already feel himself failing. Of late, any mention of sex, any stray thought on the topic, or even a word that could only be tangentially connected, would set his cheeks burning as red as his hair, like he was an awkward, gangly teenager again.

Fortunately, Molly didn’t seem to notice, just sighing and looking straight ahead. Caleb traced his gaze to the window, past the gossamer curtains to the moon beyond, full and heavy in the bold in the sky. For a moment, he imagined the disc of pale white light as a young woman, laughing and tossing her hair and opening her arms wide. A woman who liked games and cards and fun, who sang and knew magic tricks. 

It was a nice thought. It made the night surrounding her, that bloated black sink that brought Caleb all his nightmares, feel less terrifying. 

“When I was younger…” Molly’s voice shrank to a whisper, like he was scared of his own words, “And I was trying to figure out the whole, y’know…boy, girl, male, female thing…what I was attracted to and…and where I fell myself? Praying to the Moonweaver helped me a lot. With all other deities, I felt like a freak. But with her…I felt like my whole existence wasn’t one huge mistake. I actually could feel her listening to me. No one had ever done that for me.”

Why it occurred to him in that moment, he had no idea, but then Caleb was suddenly incredibly aware that he was still holding Molly’s hand. He held it a little tighter, hating himself for not having anything more to comfort him. 

The tiefling smiled and squeezed his fingers back, “Who knows. Maybe she’s just an excuse for me to gamble and party and have sex unashamedly. My family always thought it was. But…I think it’s more than that. She means a lot to me…and I couldn’t give her up when I was sent here. Even knowing the risks…”

“And you shouldn’t have to,” Caleb shook his head, “You won’t have to. Not with me, at least, I mean I…I can’t control the rest of Zadash but...”

“It’s okay,” Mollymauk chuckled softly, “You’re all I care about anyway.” 

And then he leaned in and gave Caleb a quick, swift kiss on the lips, the briefest of seconds but it left Caleb feeling like maybe he could imagine how Molly felt when he prayed. 

Mollymauk didn’t want to go back to his prayers, even when Caleb offered, though the next night he wouldn’t be driven up onto the roof in the cold or hidden away in their dressing room. Instead he returned to the blankets with his husband, arms curled around his middle and his head resting between the wizard’s narrow shoulder blades.

Dozing in the dark, Caleb tried to think of a way to tell Mollymauk how safe and protected being held like this made him feel, how it made a warmth bloom in his chest that he’d never felt before and didn’t think he could live without, how it actually made him look forward to the night for the first time in his life. 

But he couldn’t quite think of how to say it. So he stayed quiet, listening to Molly’s soft breathing. 

“Caleb?”

Surprised, Caleb opened his eyes, turning a little to see Molly’s eyes glowing back at him. 

“What are your nightmares about? You…you have them every night and I never…I never asked…”

Caleb was still for a long moment, holding himself in stasis as his heart pounded and panic shot through him like a blow to the back of the head. 

“My parents’ death,” he whispered, voice flat and steady. 

He knew he owed Molly more than that, especially after that night. But gods, what was there to say?

Mollymauk held his tongue, eyes softening in pity. He waited for more but Caleb turned his face away, pressing it to the pillows, suddenly stiff in Molly’s arms. There were a few heartbeats of thudding silence before the tiefling closed his eyes too, wishing he’d never said anything at all. 

And Caleb lay awake, tears building behind his eyelids. Every single time, every time he thought he could move on, he was reminded of the manacles that were ever present around his wrists, ones he couldn’t see but felt every single day and got heavier in the night.

Mollymauk could have his moonlight, his trysts, his prayers. Caleb had his nightmares and secrets. 

***

The only sound in the room was the whisper of him turning the pages and a soft grunting every time Frumpkin shifted into another position on his lap. Molly stroked his ears lightly as he flicked through the book of Dwendalian poetry Caleb had left him when he’d set off to the lab that morning. He was glad the cat was finally warming up to him; when he’d first arrived at the palace, he’d gotten the distinct feeling the moth eaten, squashed faced thing had wanted to eat him. 

The peace was so calm and total, the tiefling nearly hit the roof when his husband appeared from nowhere and dropped a trunk on the bed. 

“ _ Myddoury!”  _ the infernal curse ripped from his lips and sent Frumpkin barrelling from the room with a yowl, taking the fledgling goodwill between them with him. 

“Sorry,” Caleb looked sheepish, grimacing at his cat’s disappearing bristle brush tail. 

“He’s never going to forgive me,” Molly regained his composure, clearing his throat and sitting up, “But what is this, dear?” 

He looked at the trunk, old with big brass clasps and a red velvet inside. Though there was only one thing in the trunk, a piece of paper so creased and cracked and obviously folded so many times it looked as if Caleb had dug it from the deepest depths of his library.

“Look at it,” he was beaming, wider than he had since Molly had asked him about his dreams, nearly a week ago now.

The map unfurled under Molly’s fingers, revealing its innards of heavy black sketch lines and criss crossing roads done in gilded ink. He knew it in an instant. It was home. 

“We’re going to go,” Caleb burst out excitedly, like he couldn’t keep the words in anymore, “You and me. A tour of the Menagerie Coast, your home city, you can show me everywhere you used to hang out and guess what else?” He didn’t wait for a reply, not that Molly could have provided one, “The Moonweaver’s Ribbons! We’re gonna go find them! Huge streaks of light in a hundred different colours over the Elvenpeaks, from your goddess, it’s going to be amazing…”

He didn’t get any further, even if he had so much more to say on the exact electromagnetic reactions that occurred to make those lights happen. Molly threw his arms around Caleb, knocking him back against the mattress. The wizard was laughing, the tiefling was sobbing and both were smiling like they weren’t ever going to stop.  

***

The council met, over recordings and readings from mages across the empire, and declared that the first day of winter was finally upon them. 

Caleb barely heard a word of the meeting, he was too preoccupied with the fact that he and Molly were departing at first light the next day, just the two of them and a carriage. For once, he couldn’t be more delighted that the rest of the archmages didn’t care a fig for him, it meant he didn’t have to drag a retinue around with them, just his personal guard who, of course, was made up entirely of his only friends. For three whole weeks, he didn’t have to give a damn about appearing lordly or worrying about wearing his false Archmage face. He could read as he pleased, he could hold Molly’s hand without feeling a hundred stares, he could forget to brush his hair. 

And he’d finally see something beyond the walls of Zadash, a little piece of the wide world he’d always read about. He was terrified and excited all at once. 

He couldn’t get back up to their rooms fast enough. Mollymauk had been left in charge of the packing in his absence, after watching Caleb fill one case and declare that he was banned from the task. After a whole day, he imagined it would be nearly done and they could spend the evening going over the maps again. Caleb adored maps, almost as much as he adored books. 

But when he walked into their apartments, that little haven from everything about being an archmage he hated, he found it much the way he’d left it. Empty boxes and cases everywhere, clothes and books and sacks of provisions in piles. And Mollymauk in the middle of it all. 

He moved from box to case, with a strange, far away expression on his face, one of deep confusion. Like he didn’t quite know where he was. 

“Molly?” Caleb asked, more than a little surprised. 

Molly turned to him, startling his husband with how pale he was. Had he looked that pale when he’d left that morning?

“Oh, my love,” the tiefling seemed to rouse, smiling, “You’re back. I missed you.”

“I missed you too…” Caleb picked his way carefully through the mess, “Molly, is everything okay?” 

“Yes, yes, of course…I…I think I’m a little nervous,” his ears drooped, his teeth closing on his bottom lip coyly, “Going back after so long…”

“I get that,” Caleb sighed a little in relief, putting his hands on his husband’s shoulders, steadying him. Of course, that’s all it was. Who wouldn’t be nervous? “But we’re going to have such a great trip. As soon as you see those waters, you’ll realise you’re home.”

Molly smiled, “Yeah…I can’t wait…home…I…”

Caleb saw it all in sickening slow motion. His eyes rolling back. His jaw going slack. The colour draining from his purple skin and leaving only ash. Mollymauk crashed to the floor in his arms.

He heard himself screaming for help, footsteps running out in the hall to their room. He didn’t want to let Molly go when they tried to take him, Fjord had to lift him bodily, set him on the bed while Jester worked. 

Caleb buried his face in the pillows, willing himself to wake up. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please take a look at my Tumblr, @mollymauk-teafleak where I post head canons about my other AUs and other ships!
> 
> Comments and kudos are hugely appreciated!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few more chapters left guys! Please let me know what you think of the way the story's going, I love getting all your comments.

Somewhere to the South West, a single spark seemed to catch in the night itself, a star seemed to snag in the ink black fabric of the sky. It grew steadily, pulsing, flourishing, until a curtain of the most spectacular light fell between the mountains. All at once blue and green and purple, the light shimmered and swam, soaring above the harsh, jagged points of the mountains to bathe the whole valley in colours that seemed too beautiful to be of anything earthly. Trees stood gilded in the glow, the modest river seemed suddenly filled with gemstones as it reflected back the dancing lights as the display continued, heaven and earth meeting. It continued for nearly a full hour, never repeating the steps, every single second brought new hues and new choreography, until it could sustain itself no longer. Curling in on itself from the edges, the light folded inwards and dissipated, leaving the sky black and bare again. 

As they did every year, the Moonweaver’s Ribbons had blessed the Elvenpeaks. 

And Caleb and Mollymauk saw none of it. 

They’d wanted to move him to the infirmary, frightened that whatever was sickening him might be contagious and spread through the palace, perhaps infecting someone they actually cared about. But Caleb had raged, flinging fire at the people who came to carry out the orders. Not enough to hurt but enough to singe the edges of their robes and scorch a large, black mark in the door as they’d fled. Though when one of the archmages had come to see why their instructions were being ignored, all puffed up with outrage and entitlement, he’d left with his hair in flames. No one had come back after that. 

He knew what the infirmary was like; a cold, windowless chamber just one step above the dungeons, not only in where it was placed in the bowels of the palace but in it’s manner too. Stark white, rock hard beds, leeches, ice water baths, acidic medicines. He’d get no help there, they wanted to send him down to die, out of sight and out of their hands. 

But, unfortunately for them, Caleb had finally found something he would fight them on, something he wasn’t willing to stay meek and quiet over, and he was fighting hard. 

And so he stayed there still, in their own bedchamber. Even in his own bed, in his own nightgown, with his necklaces still lying slack against his collarbone and his bands of precious metals on his horns, he didn’t look like Molly anymore. This unknown, nameless disease had robbed him of his curves, the violet blush of his skin, his smile, his laugh. Without all of that, Caleb hardly knew him, it felt as if he’d already lost him. 

Mollymauk had been drifting in and out of consciousness since he’d collapsed almost a week ago. He never seemed to be fully one or the other, when asleep his eyeballs would dart frantically behind shadowed, half closed lids as his whole body twitched and when awake, his speech would slur and his trains of thought would run on and on to nowhere, like he never fully grasped where or even who he was. He’d respond to nothing, only moan that it hurt, over and over, voice low and shapeless and pitiful. 

It was those times that Caleb found hardest to stay by his husband’s bedside. He’d never left it once and never would, but listening to the tiefling’s agony was so close to more than he could bear. All he could do was cling to his hand, press his fingers to his lips and beg him in a whisper to wake up. 

With none of the other servants willing to go into the room, not with some unknown sickness hanging in the air, it fell almost entirely to Jester and Caleb to nurse Mollymauk and try and halt and turn back whatever force was wasting away his muscles and filling his head with delirium and causing him to bleed periodically from the nose and corners of his eyes. 

At first, Jester had been her usual optimistic self, listing half a hundred different illnesses with symptoms like this, each one with their own simple and proven effective treatments. Caleb had gratefully clung to every scrap of hope she’d given him, eagerly playing nurse for her, grinding up pastes for poultices, slicing fabric into bandages, conjuring flames in his palms to heat her water. But slowly, surely, Jester’s lists of options had shrank as her diagnoses and treatments failed one by one. Every day, she looked a little less confident, her smile grew a little more strained. Caleb’s hope died a painful death by increments, replaced by a bottomless desperation. 

And Mollymauk only got sicker. 

“Caleb? Caleb, you have to eat something…” 

Not sure at first if the voice was real or in his imagination, it was a while before the wizard lifted his head and found Jester sat on the opposite edge of the bed, watching him with violet eyes wide with anxiety. She looked beyond exhausted, usually sapphire blue skin ashy and heart shaped face drawn. If that was how she looked, he didn’t even want to think about the state he was in himself. 

“I’m not hungry, Jester,” Caleb shook his head, voice coming out thin, “You should go down and get something but I’m just going to stay here. That mustard seed potion might work, I want to be here if he wakes up…” 

Jester hesitated, not saying what both she and Caleb knew, that the potion had only made Molly vomit it straight back up not ten minutes after he’d been given it, left him hacking and heaving until he’d slipped back into his fitful sleep. 

“You should still come down, even just to stretch your legs. You need fresh air…” the young tiefling protested as she rose to her feet.

“I  _ need  _ my husband to be well again,” Caleb snapped, fiercer than he’d meant it to be, eyes sharp as flint as he glared at Jester. 

She flinched, stepping back, her lower lip wobbling. 

Instantly, the fire went out of him and he was left hollow, “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” he sighed heavily, “Just go. Get some food and some rest.” 

She went, though she still looked stricken, either at his outburst or at leaving him there in the sickroom. Caleb couldn’t tell. Alone with his black thoughts and his husband’s shallow, sickly breathing, he squeezed Molly’s hand tighter and began to recite the eighty eight kinds of magical powders, the five decay equations for transmutation energy, all the kinds of crystal and their angles of cut needed to properly diffract abjuration magic. Anything to stop the panic clutching at his throat, the little voice that was whispering the truth he could see before him but didn’t want to acknowledge. 

It worked for a time. Rules and laws and rubrics he could do, he found safety and security in them. They made sense. He could take them in his hands and force them into any configuration he desired, he could make wonders with them. 

But he couldn’t save Mollymauk.

So he clung to what he understood until he began to run out of symbols and structures, until all he could hear was the thin, shallow wheezing of Molly’s breathing, growing weaker by the second. Caleb clung to his hand as if physical touch alone could keep him in this life, as if he could make him stay just by holding on tightly enough. 

Tears swelled behind his eyelids, hot and painful. 

“Caleb…”

As if an electric current had shot through him, Caleb bolted upright, pitching forward, “Molly?”

The tiefling’s face was still slack and his eyes were closed, still dreaming, whatever he was seeing was making lines of worry and pain fracture his face. Heart sinking a little, Caleb pulled back, hand moving shakily to stroke his husband’s hair, the way he knew he liked. He’d caught the tiefling in the corner of his eye, doing it for himself on a few occasions, too uncertain of their standing to ask for it from his husband. The wizard had always meant afterwards to do it some night but he’d never gotten around to it. It made Caleb’s gut twist now, to think of all those times Molly had wanted such a simple gesture of affection. He should have done it, said something, told him that of course he deserved touch, care, tenderness. 

There were a great many things Caleb should have told Mollymauk. 

“No…no…please…” the tiefling gasped again, his voice so terrifyingly small. 

Caleb shushed gently, running his fingers through his now greasy, limp curls, “It’s okay, it’s just a dream, Molly, you’re okay…” 

“Please don’t…” his voice broke in a soft, tremulous sob, fingers trying to clench in the sheets but they didn’t have the strength, “My Caleb…”

The tears came thicker and faster, burning on his cheeks. Caleb tried to wake him but he knew it was mostly futile, nearly everything was dream for poor Molly now, none of it nice. 

“Please don’t…” Molly again begged some unseen figure, starting to shake, “You’re hurting him…stop…leave him alone…” 

Stunned, Caleb stilled his hand, fixed on the fevered words pouring out of Molly’s mouth. 

“You can’t…he’s mine. My Caleb, stop it…stop hurting him…” 

Choking on his tears, Caleb tried to catch Molly’s wrists as he began to writhe and thrash, the shakes getting more violent. 

“I’m okay, no one’s hurting me,” he gasped, “Molly, I’m alright, I’m safe.” 

The tiefling just continued to mumble, the words becoming indistinct and lost as his teeth began to chatter. Blood beaded in his nostrils and in the corners of his eyes, running in red rivulets down his ashy skin. Jester had drilled him in what to do. He threw himself over Molly, forcing his jaw down and jamming the leather strip between his teeth. His hands worked on automatic, doing everything he needed to do to prevent his husband biting his own tongue off, playing nurse while his eyes streamed with tears and his shoulders shook. 

It was a hideous five minutes that seemed to last an eternity. Eventually it ran its course and Molly fell still and silent, blood still bubbling in his nose and streaking down his face. There was a long, horrible moment where the world seemed to slow and tremble but then the tiefling’s chest rose, fell, rose, fell. Back to how it had been before, no better or worse. 

Caleb took the leather from his mouth, setting it back on the nightstand where it had laid for the past few days since Molly had started fitting. Sobbing, he withdrew back to the chair by the bed, back to clinging to his hand. 

“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled in between gasping, gulping breaths, “I should have told you, I should have said something. You deserved so much better than me. I couldn’t even fucking tell you I loved you. And I did, Molly, I did. I do. I just didn’t realise it until now and it’s too late and I’m so fucking sorry…”

Mollymauk gave no reply. The fingers in Caleb’s grasp stayed limp and skeletal. Blood began to seep into the feather mattress. 

Caleb had never felt like such a fucking coward. 

As the grey day outside turned into a grey dusk, Caleb stayed by the bedside. Jester, brave, beautiful Jester, tried again and again to get him to eat or sleep or go outside and he just returned with limp excuses and insistence that he was completely fine. He just couldn’t leave Mollymauk’s side. There was always just that voice whispering inside him that if he left, even for a little while, even if he so much as turned his head away, when he looked back his husband would be dead. 

As the twilight descended, there came the thing neither Caleb nor Jester had ever expected. There was a knock at the door. 

Both of them stood in shock for a moment, as if they were both wondering if they really had heard it. But then it came again. Jester gave Caleb a look, uncertain. The wizard could only shrug, going back to gently sponging away the streaks of blood from his husband’s face, the ones from earlier. If they wanted to come, let them come. His patience was growing thin very rapidly. If this was more servants, more mages or even the Grand Mage himself, come to take Molly away, they’d be leaving in flames. 

But it wasn’t. It was the towering, dusty grey firbolg who had been part of Molly’s retinue from the Menagerie Coast, who’d come to see him wed. The rest had long since departed but a few had stayed to be part of the newly joined lord’s household; the quiet, distant firbolg with the shockingly pink undercut had been one of them. He was often there when the friends would gather together though he seemed to be in a world of his own more than half the time. Caleb can’t have spoken more than a handful of words to him in the whole time he’d been in Zadash. 

It even took him a few moments longer than it should have to recall his name. Caduceus Clay. 

“I hope I do not intrude,” his voice was low and gentle though it cut through the tension in the sickroom like a thunderclap, “I just wanted to offer my services.” 

“Services?” Caleb croaked, not quite following. 

“I am a healer, my lord,” the firbolg flicked his wide, low hanging ears in admission, “A cleric. Specialising in herblore and botanicals.” 

Caleb felt guilty that he hadn’t already known that, that he hadn’t shown enough interest in his husband’s friends to come up with that information himself, “I see. Well, thank you…” 

“We could use another set of hands,” Jester managed to brighten for him, smiling, “You’re very welcome, Caduceus.”

“I would have come sooner,” he spread his hands in apology, tail sweeping back and forth on the carpet, “But I was working on a theory, asking around amongst your city’s farmers and the palace gardeners. And it’s only recently that I think I’ve found my answer.” 

That sparked something in Caleb’s chest. He dropped the cloth he was holding and fixed the firbolg with an intense stare, “An answer? You can help my husband?” 

“I think I can,” the nod came and Caleb grasped a thin thread of hope with both hands. 

“What cure were you thinking of?” Jester wrinkled her nose, holding herself like she was about to pounce, ready to spring into action for whatever the other cleric suggested, “I did think I’d considered all the potential herbal options? Poultices, potions, creams…” 

“I do not think a plant is the cure, my dear,” Caduceus shook his head, “I think it is the cause.”

 

He spread his hands on the cold, stone windowsill and gazed through the leaded glass at the dark gardens outside and the rolling rest of the city beyond. The night was thick and almost total, apart from the scattered points of  vague minty green luminescence, haphazardly arranged across the rolling valley, pulsing softly in the darkness. Caleb had never once stopped to think how unusual and ghostly they would look to someone who hadn’t grown up in Zadash. To him and the thousands of others who lived in the city, they were a common sight on winter nights, expected alongside the crust of frost on the grass in the morning and the red holly berries budding on the trees during the day. It was even common practise for the poor folk of the city to harvest them and bring them inside to light their humble cottages on the dark nights. Folklore sprouted up around them, a hundred different tales, how they marked the footsteps of faeries or showed the paths where long dead relatives walked to visit their families for the yuletide celebrations or fell as scales from the backs of ice dragons when they’d swoop overhead centuries ago. But it was the most common of all the stories than gave the fungi their colloquial name, the one Caleb and most other Zadashi children knew them by. 

Supposedly, a long time ago, a goddess had been forced to give up her children so they could form the stars, while she herself became the moon above. They were always in sight of her, glittering alongside her in the night but so far away that, as much as she strained and fought, she could never hold them in her arms again. So the goddess had wept, most often in the winter, for that was when the nights were longest and when the poor goddess would be forced to watch her children dance across the sky without her for the longest, cruellest hours. And where her tears struck the earth sprung the Moontear mushrooms. 

Caleb could remember nights when he was much younger, long, velvet black winter nights where he would spend hours curled up in bed, reading by the soft, comforting light of the crop of Moontears his mama had brought in from the cold and placed on the table. Some said their light had healing properties, infused with the love the goddess had for her lost children, granting health and fortitude through the bitter winters. 

The thought made Caleb smile with a sour irony as he looked out across the fields. As they so often did, the tales had turned out to be hollow and empty. The mushrooms, far from keeping him safe and strong, had been killing the only person who made him truly happy. 

He turned away from the window, back to the bed, where Caduceus was still working as he explained his theories, his body surprisingly animated as he ground and chopped and crushed even as his voice stayed slow and dawdling. The sheer amount of bags, jars and bottles he’d brought up with him had seemed overwhelming to Caleb but the firbolg seemed to know each one intimately, scarcely needing to read the labels as he worked at the table that had been dragged over to the bedside. 

“Of course anyone who grew up in the area would have a natural immunity,” he explained as he tipped some dried berries into his palm and crushed them to a fine, ruby dust, “And the chances of a person being susceptible is small in itself. Hence why Yasha and I are not affected. But Mollymauk…”

Caleb bit his lip, moving over to take the sleeping Molly’s hand again, noting how the nosebleed had started again and didn’t seem to be stopping no matter how many times Jester sponged the congealing blood away. The urge to beg Caduceus just to hurry up and get on with it was strong, almost too strong as the panic resurfaced, but he managed to calm down. He may very well owe this strange, melancholic firbolg his husband’s life. 

“The spores emitted nightly by this fungus, they’ve been poisoning him, in much the same way arsenic would. Inhaling them daily has been causing this strange sickness. And of course, with the mushrooms being otherwise harmless to everyone else, no one would have suspected…”

From across the bed, Caleb noted a deep guilt flicker across Jester’s face as she ground ginger in a black marble bowl. He reached over with his free hand and gently patted her arm, wordlessly letting her know that it was okay, no one could have blamed her for not seeing it, he only had thanks for everything she’d done. Jester gave him a soft look, clearly grateful. 

“A simple inoculation against the spores, to replicate the defences everyone else has and he is missing, to combat the effects of the poisoning, it should save him,” Caduceus continued, taking the ginger from Jester and adding it to his pot, now at a roiling bubbling from Caleb’s magical flames.

“And…he’ll be okay?” Caleb spoke up, voice sounding so tired even to his own ears. 

Caduceus flicked his ears, considering, “He will need to drink the potion every night until the mushroom recedes back to its dormant state and every winter will still bring some sickness and discomfort. And…well, he’s been battling this for a while. There may well be some memory loss…stiffness in the joints…bad dreams…” 

Caleb kissed Molly’s fingers gently. He was no stranger to any of those things, “But he’ll live?”

“He will live,” Caduceus nodded in confirmation, smiling crookedly. 

 

Caleb breathed a shuddering sigh that was half a sob, hearing those words he’d been aching to hear for weeks now. He retreated into that thought, letting the two healers work around him, just telling himself over and over that Mollymauk was going to live. 

Mollymauk. Who he loved. 

He had no idea how much Molly could hear in the half conscious delirium he was in, whether his confession had reached him through the thick, poisonous fog. But he would get the chance to say it again, hear the words come out of his mouth, watch Molly’s face as he processed them. 

It all became so real in that moment, of course some terror rose up in his chest. But not enough to dissuade him, he’d nearly lost his chance to say it and he wasn’t about to let that happen again. 

But then there was the other thing. 

The other thing he had to tell Mollymauk, knew he had to, before he let the tiefling love him. 

The terror at the thought of that was much harder to fight. 

“Move his head back a little…” Caduceus’ voice reached him again. 

Caleb nodded, jumping up and reaching over, gently tipping Molly’s head back so the firbolg could pour the shimmering, shifting liquid contained within the pot down his slack, open mouth. The potion seemed to glow like the Moontears that had caused all of this, a film like liquid mercury clinging to the surface and breaking up into fractals as it trickled in a gentle waterfall down Mollymauk’s throat. There was nothing at first but soon his throat began to work and churn the stuff down, automatic systems gearing up even as his brain stayed lost. The glow actually persisted at first under his washed out purple skin, lingering along his neck before disappearing as the medicine worked through his system, hopefully repairing all the damage that had been done. 

“It will take a few moments,” Caduceus advised gently but Caleb stayed on his feet, still hovering over Molly, stroking his hair back from his forehead and hoping fiercely. 

Those few moments were an eternity in themselves, murderously long and silent, none of the three of them daring to breathe. The pot trembled in Caduceus’ hands, Jester fidgeted anxiously with the hem of her dress as she silently mouthed a prayer but Caleb could have been carved from stone.  

The sudden intake of air from Mollymauk made them all start, the sharp, rushing gasp as he inhaled with more strength than he’d had in days. He spluttered a little, sat up a little, but the effort of waking up seemed to have took most of the energy he had and he fell against the pillows, eyes wide and confused and uncertain. 

The first word he choked out, through cracked lips was, “Caleb?”

“Right here,” Caleb’s voice caught and he was vaguely aware of tears streaming down his face as he knelt by Molly, touching his face, his horns, his hands as if checking he really was real, “I’m here, Molly, I’m here.”

Molly tried to sit up more but fell back, wincing in pain. Jester was crying, Caduceus was saying something but Caleb heard none of it, he had eyes and ears only for his husband as he settled him back down on the pillows. 

“I was looking for you…” Mollymauk croaked, eyes fixed on Caleb’s face, “I was lost but I could hear you…I looked for you…”

“You found me,” Caleb murmured, pressing his forehead to Mollymauk’s, holding him close and being held in turn. 

Footsteps were running through the halls, servants were being called. But all Caleb could hear was the thud of Molly’s heartbeat, so real and strong and  _ alive.  _

 

“I nearly died because of some fucking mushrooms?” 

If anything, Molly just sounded indignant. 

“Apparently,” Caleb chuckled, just thrilling in the sensation of Molly’s breath against his face and the bright awareness in his eyes and his smile. Everything telling him his Molly was back with him. 

The two of them were lying on the bed together, all with fresh washed sheets and new hangings and scented candles burning on the bedside table, every trace of death and sickness chased out of the room. Molly still looked pale and exhausted but the difference from where he’d been just a day before was staggering. Most of it was Caduceus’ medicine, it had to be said, but the firbolg himself had smiled wryly and insisted a good part of it was Mollymauk’s sheer force of will. He was physically dragging himself back towards being well again. 

“I can’t believe it,” the tiefling huffed, rolling onto his back though still staying close to Caleb, their legs still entwined. 

Which the wizard definitely hadn’t failed to notice. 

“If it helps?” he grinned, “It was a super rare kind of disease. You’re basically a medical marvel.”

“I hope I get into a textbook,” Molly flashed him a grin in return.

They were alone in the room, Jester had gone to have some incredibly well earned rest and time with Fjord and Caduceus had left, promising he would rest, but Caleb had a sneaking suspicion he was off to do more research on these mushrooms that fascinated him so much. He hadn’t even begun to tell the two healers how much he appreciated what they’d done; when he’d tried, the tears had choked his throat and he hadn’t been able to make so much as a squeak. But from the way they’d clasped him tightly, he suspected they’d got the message.  

Bread, cheese, fruit and a tall ewer of water rested next to the candle. Caleb reached back and plucked the tastiest looking strawberry from the platter, offering it to Mollymauk. 

“Alright, alright,” the tiefling chuckled, taking it and rolling his eyes, “When they said make sure I get enough to eat, they didn’t mean suffocate me under a pile of fruit.”

“You need to eat,” Caleb shrugged, uncompromising. What he didn’t say was the sight of Molly eating, actually okay and here and talking and joking and eating, soothed his mind more than anything ever had. 

There was a pause, while Mollymauk ate the whole berry in three bites, despite his protest. And in that pause, Caleb became powerfully aware of their legs tangled together, Molly’s hand in his own, Molly’s tail wrapped around his leg. They’d never lay so close any other time but at night. In the daylight, in the bright but chilly winter sun angling in through the window, it seemed very different. More exposed. 

And it made him think just what  _ I could hear you  _ meant. 

So he asked. 

“When you were…sick,” was how he delicately chose to phrase it, any word more harsh brought up fear tinged memories he had a feeling he’d be grappling with for a long time, “How much were you aware of?” 

Molly seemed to know what Caleb was asking but not quite asking, staying coy, licking red juice from his fingers, “More than you’d think. I remember hearing you talking with Jester. I remember you sending away the people who came to take me. I remember Deucy’s voice. It got more hazy the longer it went on but…”

Caleb felt his cheeks heat up under Molly’s gaze, “So…do you remember me saying…” 

Molly paused for a long moment, his thumb stroking over Caleb’s palm, “I did. But I don’t want it to be half a memory and half a dream. I don’t want it to be something I couldn’t reply to because I had blood running out of my eyes. I want to hear you say it now.”

Caleb nodded, smiling softly, of course he could understand that. He didn’t want that to be their first time either, it shouldn’t be something bitter and sad that he couldn’t even properly think back on because it hurt too much. 

He took a deep breath and brought Molly’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss between each of the gaps between his raised knuckles, enjoying the softness of the skin there, the way it was a slightly deeper purple. 

“I can’t, Mollymauk.”

Molly’s eager, anticipatory smile flickered and died, fading into a look of confusion, “I…I don’t understand. Did you not mean it…”

“No!” Caleb scrambled to wipe away the look of hurt on his husband’s face, cursing himself for being such an idiot with words, “No, of course I meant it, I meant every word. I just can’t say it right now, not…not yet.”

Molly tilted his head, falling quiet, watching Caleb’s face carefully. 

“There’s something I have to tell you first,” he could already feel his throat constricting as his body fought against the words that were rising up, half his mind trying to feverishly beat them back down to the shadows where they belonged, desperate not to let them see the light, “I can’t tell you how I feel until I’ve said it because…because it’s probably going to change your response…and if I let you say it and then you’ll have to take it back, that’ll just hurt too much, Molly.”

Molly shook his head, looking distraught, “Nothing could make me take it back, Caleb, I promise you.”

Caleb took a shuddery breath, eyes dropping to their tightly clasped hands, wondering if this is the last time he’ll get to have contact like this, “This might.” 

He’d never told anyone before. Of course the other archmages knew, it was only on the recommendation of Ikithon that he’d even been accepted into the Academy, giving him that one chance he needed, the chance that would have been impossible otherwise. Then he could use his own talents and determination to progress through every test and ascend to the level he was at now, defying every single one of the many times the council tried to stymie him. So, in a way, he owed everything to Ikithon. 

That fact was a wound inside him that hadn’t quite healed yet and likely never would. 

So of course the council whispered about it behind his back, the tale was passed among the servants and the acolytes and the students, a particularly macabre piece of gossip underneath the scandal of his background, his poverty, his sexuality. The palace blabbermouths must have been overjoyed the day he joined the council, Caleb often thought bitterly. 

Even his friends knew, he’d realised with a sickening jolt one day when an otherwise light conversation about parents had fizzled and died when it naturally turned to Caleb and everyone realised he’d been dead silent since it begun. The awkward glances and throat clearings had told him everything he needed to know. He should have realised before, his friends had originally been hired as his guard, his healer, his lab assistant. Of course they’d been told. They’d just had the grace never to mention it. He loved them for that, for not letting it change how they felt about him, but still, it had taken a long time for that awkwardness to dissipate. 

No one had ever heard the story from Caleb’s own mouth. He couldn’t even imagine making the shapes with his tongue and his lips, actually speaking the words out loud, making them so much more real when at every other time they were only dreams. And even now, so close to Molly, their noses practically touching, their hearts open and exposed to each other, he was struggling to see how he could manage it. 

But he had to. This was what he had to face, to earn the right of telling Mollymauk he loved him. 

So he did it. 

He told him everything, from the beginning right up until the end. From Blumenthal to the Soltryce Academy and back again. The bruises, the harsh words, the starvation, all to make him stronger. The many, many times he’d come close to quitting but hadn’t because of the look of pride in his parents’ eyes and the knowledge that, if he worked hard enough, he could give them the life they deserved. 

The day his mind was taken from him and the day he got it back. 

The burning house, black against the roaring flames. 

Tears hot on his cheeks, he rolled up his sleeves to show the burn marks that covered the entirety of his forearms, the mottled, scarred skin. 

“People think they are from accidents while I was training, spells that went wrong,” he whispered, his voice a low, miserable mumble, “But they’re not. I never messed up my spells, not once. They’re from when I tried to run back into the house, after the false memories fell away. Beams had already fallen in the doorway, I tried to pull them away but they wouldn’t budge and I was dragged back.” 

Molly didn’t say anything, he hadn’t for a long time, but his delicately shaking hands came up to trace the scars with his thumbs. They were ugly things, Caleb had always despised them for a multitude of reasons and never wore anything that stopped above his elbow, even in the height of summer. But Molly touched them gently, almost comfortingly. 

“I either passed out or someone struck me, I don’t know,” Caleb continued, now he’d started the tale, he seemed unable to let it go until it was done, “But I woke up in the asylum. I was there for eleven years while the fake memories lost their power and I knew myself fully again. And then…then I just went back to school.”

Of course the dream of escaping had been there but he hadn’t been able to face it. He was a broken man after coming out of the asylum- after Ikithon had plucked him out of it, he mustn’t forget that, something else he owed him- and he’d just meekly returned to his studies, wanting consistency, wanting familiarity. He’d passed his examinations with flying colours, moved up the ranks, achieved things he’d wanted desperately since he was a child. But it had all been the hollow, automatic actions of someone who had nothing left inside their chest. 

“The first time I went back, the very first day after I’d been missing for a decade, you know what they did, the other archmages? They  _ praised me for my obedience.” _

That broke him. The tears washed over him in an undeniable, inescapable tide, pulling him under. But then arms wrapped around him, there was a shoulder for him to sob into. Hands stroked his hair held him fast. 

He cried for longer than he ever had before, at least for as long as he could remember. Deep wracking sobs that seemed like they were never going to end until they did. And when they did, Mollymauk was still there, still holding him tenderly. 

“Where is he? Ikithon?” the tiefling murmured, his voice very quiet. 

“Long gone,” Caleb choked out, throat raw and eyes burning, “They could ignore him abusing his students but they couldn’t ignore him breaking the rules of magic. It was his seat on the council I took.” 

“I’m going to kill him,” Molly said, voice suddenly so deeply dangerous in a way Caleb had never heard it be before, “If he’s not already dead, I will kill him and if he is, I’ll drag him back into this realm and kill him again.” 

Caleb shakes his head, “It’s not…I…I don’t want that, he’s gone, that’s all I care about. He already took my parents, I can’t let him take you too.”

The fire in Molly’s red eyes seemed to fierce to be cowed but, at Caleb’s words, it disappeared, replaced by a gentleness he didn’t feel he deserved but there it was, all the same. 

“Caleb, I…I can’t imagine what that was like for you,” the tiefling murmured, “I swear, no one will ever hurt you like that again. You’re mine and I love you and no one is doing anything like that to you ever again.”

There they were, those words. 

“I…I love you too,” Caleb mumbled, “But how…how can you love me after what I did? It…it’s unforgivable.” 

“What  _ they  _ did was unforgivable,” Molly corrected, taking Caleb’s face in his hands, “All you did was try and make a better life for your family, none of it was your choice. You were hurt badly, Caleb, but it’s never going to happen again.” 

Utterly stunned, all Caleb could do was say it again, “I love you. I love you so much, Mollymauk.” 

“And I love you,” his husband smiled, the dazzling smile that could make clouded skies sunny again and make Caleb believe he was worthy of love, “I love you. Can I kiss you?”

Caleb answered by leaning in and pressing his lips to Mollymauk’s. Not the quick, light kisses of before but a deep, intense kiss like he’d never had before in his life. He didn’t give himself the time to be nervous, he let his body do what felt natural, hands coming up to cradle the back of his neck and lips parting, tongue slipping into the other man’s mouth. And Molly responded in kind, more confident than Caleb for obvious reasons but they seemed to instantly know what the other wanted, needed. 

And it was wonderful. Incredible. Beautiful. 

It was such a wild change from pouring out his bitter past, it made Caleb’s chest ache. But he wouldn’t have traded it for anything. 

The Moonweaver could keep her ribbons. They’d never compare, as far as Caleb was concerned, heaven and earth met in Mollymauk’s kiss. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on Tumblr @mollymauk-teafleak and Wordpress under the same name, come say hi and we'll share head canons!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb promised Mollymauk a trip to the Menagerie Coast, a visit to his home. But there are some other gifts he wants to give his husband alongside that.

It was known far and wide how much Caleb Widogast loved books and would defend them emphatically. It was obvious in the way he collected them, dusted them more frequently than he did anything else, kept curtains drawn so the sunlight didn’t fall on the delicate pages, fell asleep with one spread open in his lap because he’d been hungrier for the words and the pictures they painted than he had been for sleep. There were probably quite a few that he’d rather give his life for than see get mistreated.

And even so, as he looked out of the carriage window and saw the valleys opening up around them, the sky growing clear and blue, he realised that there were some things where the books and maps simply couldn’t do justice.

Seeing the great, wide world unfold before him, ready to welcome him, that was better to see with his own eyes. And even better to see with his husband’s hand in his own and his head resting on his shoulder while the wizard pressed his nose eagerly to the glass.

“Mollymauk, look!” he reached over and shook his dozing husband for what must have been the hundredth time since they began their journey only two days ago, “Look at that bird! I’ve never seen a storm hawk so close before!”

Molly opened one red eye, his smile gentle, “There’s hundreds, all over the place around here. They breed and nest on the cliff faces.”  

Caleb gave a soft gasp of awe, watching the hawk wheel and whirl until it was lost to sight beyond the crest of a hill. Silently, he wished it well on its journey, hoping it would have as good fortune as they’d had so far.

They’d left Zadash with no fanfare at all, early one chilly morning before the city had really woken up; just the two of them, Beau, Yasha and Fjord as their guard, Caduceus and Jester as healers and Nott for no reason other than Caleb adored her and refused to go anywhere without his little lab assistant. They’d been grinning and laughing conspiratorially, almost as if it had been a jail break rather than a fully, if a little offhandedly, sanctioned diplomatic visit. There had been an edge of mania to their merriment, a hangover from nearly losing Mollymauk just a scant few weeks ago, a headache from the breakneck speed at which their fortunes had turned. From sobbing brokenly beside a sickbed, to sitting back as a future he’d never dared dream of rolled itself out and beckoned invitingly.

Caleb had to ask himself daily if it was all real. If he deserved any of it.

A flash of brown and white in the grass beyond broke him out of his reverie, making his face light up.

“Molly!” Caleb grinned, “A rabbit just ran past! Or a hare, maybe? It looked pretty big. What’s the difference between a hare and a rabbit?”

He looked curiously to the tiefling leaning against him, though it sparked a moment where just how different his husband looked smacked him across the face again, making him forget his question. Mollymauk had made a remarkable recovery, Caduceus and his daily medicine saw to that, but the long illness had left it’s marks on him all the same, that and having to live surrounded by the plants that had poisoned him in the first place.

His eyes seemed duller than they were before, his cheeks were hollow and his collarbones jutted out more than they had before. When he pillowed his head on his chest, Caleb could feel the ribs there and where the skin was slack over his stomach after losing so much weight in such a short space of time. And more than that, there were bad dreams. Awful, terrible dreams made sharper by fever that left him shaking and sweating and lashing out. He’d actually shredded a few sets of bedding, claws unsheathing and scything through them while trying to fend off things that weren’t real. But, fortunately, Mollymauk couldn’t have shared his bed with someone who understood that more. Nearly every night since he’d been pulled from death’s door, Caleb had been given the chance to finally use his years of trauma for something good, knowing exactly how to speak to Mollymauk to calm him down, how to hold his wrists tight so he couldn’t hurt himself, bring him iced water to gentle the shakes. As soon as Molly had a firm grip on reality, Caleb would take his head in his lap and stroke his hair for hours, murmuring softly how nothing could harm him, nothing would take him from his arms.

Still, the long, hard nights and an illness buzzing underneath his skin like an awful static had visibly weakened him, making him wince as he rose or sat, putting deep shadows around his eyes.

The only thing that hadn’t diminished was his smile which was larger and more often seen than ever.

“Mollymauk?” Caleb prompted again, reaching and tapping his arm, wanting his attention. Mostly wanting to see that he was okay.

The tielfing chuckled, sitting up and smiling fondly at him, “I love the way you say my name. Did I ever tell you that?”

“The way I say your name?” Caleb blinked, the edges of his mouth turning upwards as bashfulness and delight vied on his face, “How do I say it?”

“You say like…‘mullamauk’,” Molly snorts, “It’s adorable. Mullamauk.”

“Oh hush, it’s just my accent,” Caleb elbows him lightly, laughing.

“No, no, I like it!” Molly swatted away his arm, rings and bracelets singing with every movement, the months seeming to fall away from his face for a moment.

Caleb found his back pressed against the window, Molly catching his wrists to evade any more onslaughts, the two of them laughing like children. The world continued on outside but suddenly all Caleb had eyes for was his husband, his brave, strong, bold husband.

“I love you,” he murmured, not needing to raise his voice beyond that, seeing as they were nose to nose, though he would happily have yelled it so loud that it echoed through the hills.

It was getting easier to say, the words could tumble from his tongue now with barely a thought. Not to say that it was becoming a careless act; Caleb couldn’t imagine saying it and not having it accompanied by a pulse of feeling in his chest. It was just that now he ran towards it eagerly, catching it in his palms like a firebug and marvelling in it, rather than cringing back.

“I love you too,” Mollymauk grinned slightly lopsidedly.

Caleb found himself aware of the closeness of the carriage, in a way he hadn’t been before. How Molly’s body was pressed against his own. How the tiefling’s fingers knotted in his own. How their legs rested against each other, only clothing between them.

“You know…” Caleb began.

And that was when a tiny, green fist rapped on the glass, making them both jump. Nott’s face appeared, upside down, her thin black hair hanging like a waterfall of ink, her grin wide and eyes bright with that unbridled, childlike excitement she sometimes got, usually whenever she and Caleb made a breakthrough in the lab or he made some new, shiny compound for her to add to her collection.

“Great news, we’re almost there. Wanna know how I can tell? The freaking _ocean is right there!”_

Caleb felt a burst of excited curiosity in his chest, he’d never seen the sea before, between his fledgling farming town and the landlocked brick mountain of his city. But his reaction was nothing compared to Molly’s who reeled backwards and flew out of the opposite window, claws leaving gouges in the gilded wood as he leapt to the roof of the carriage, a blur of purple silk. Surprised, Caleb followed, though he wasn’t nearly as dextrous as his husband, slipping on the windowsill and finding himself red faced and wheezing by the time he’d hauled himself up.

Mollymauk was crouched on the flat roof, staring out over the verges as they fell aside to make way for the ocean, their first glimpse of it since they set out from Zadash, their first glimpse of what made the Menagerie Coast a coast. It was a shock, something his eye didn’t want to accept at first. It just looked too big. It’s enormity, it’s vastness struck him, making him suddenly so aware of how little of the world he’d seen and understood. This depthless blue covered most of the world and he’d never even seen if with his own eyes until now. One there it wasn’t there, it had been an illumination on a scroll, words in a story, an idea he knew of vaguely. And now it was reality.

The corners of Caleb’s mouth twitched upwards in an rapt smile. He’d never thought he’d enjoy feeling so foolish.

“It’s beautiful,” he laughed softly, turning to Mollymauk, questions about just how big the sea was, where it ended, how it came to be, what lived within it, them all crowding eagerly on the tip of his tongue ready to pour out towards the tiefling. But the look on his husband’s face froze them in place.

Tears ran down Molly’s face, catching the light in much the same way his jewellery did, large and glittering and heavy. His hands clasped tightly in his fabulously coloured cloak, held at the base of his throat. And he was looking at the sea with the expression of someone seeing a beloved old friend across a street after a painfully long time away, someone seeing a lighthouse’s glow from the deck of a ship. Someone returning home.

“Mollymauk…” Caleb breathed gently, resting his hand on his shoulder, not quite knowing what to say but desperate to help in some way.

Molly shook his head, smiling a little, never taking his eyes off the ocean, “I’m alright. I just…I’ve missed this. More than I thought I had, actually”

Caleb squeezes his shoulder gently, nodding, though his face slackened into anxiety as soon as he withdrew back into himself and left Molly to his ocean and his tears and his memories. How had he not realised how much his husband was dreaming of home? Why were these tears coming now, so sudden and heavy, and there had been no hint of them before? When he looked at Mollymauk now, there was no denying that months in the hot, crowded concrete expanse of the city had been slowly strangling his husband. 

There were still so many things Caleb needed to get used to when it came to sharing his life and his heart with another person. Suddenly he felt foolish all over again though there was no joy in it this time.

“It’s nearly dusk, we’ll be stopping to set up camp soon anyway,” he offered after a while, “Shall we pause here? Go down to the beach?”

Molly dragged one of his expansive, richly embroidered sleeves over his eyes to clear away the tears, replacing them with a grateful smile, “I’d like that.”   

Even the thankfulness on his husband’s face couldn’t shift the hard rock in the pit of Caleb’s stomach. He was the reason Molly had been sent away from his home but, here, have a few weeks back where you belong before being wrenched away again, be grateful for that much. Was that all he had to give?  

Maybe it wasn’t.  Maybe there was more.  

The carriage was drawn up a little ways down the road, where the cliffs sloped down into a bowl of sorts, a sheltered vale of sea grass and beach bracken, sheltered from the wind and with a great golden path of sand leading down to the shore. As they unloaded what they needed to camp for the night, Caleb realised he didn’t need his coat any more. All the chill of a Zadashi winter had been left behind and the air here was warm, pleasant, like breath fragranced with salt and grass. He abandoned his scarf and duster in the carriage, leaving them for Frumpkin to curl up on and keep them safe for his return. And then, on a completely wild impulse, he took off his boots and socks, leaving them and the chatter of his companions in the camp, taking a few furtive steps out onto the sand and smooth, dark pebbles.  

He grinned to himself, wriggling his toes to make the sand cascade over them. It was strangely warm, having been baking under the sun all day, as if waiting to invite him. It felt to him like something living, like the beach itself was a breathing, living organism with warm blood rushing beneath him and a constant inhale and exhale passing over the sand with the steady rolling of the waves. Before he’d really realised it, he’d walked out halfway to the water, mesmerised. He could happily have just kept walking right unto the surf and maybe even beyond, if he hadn’t suddenly become aware of feet rushing up behind him.  

“Don’t leave me behind!” Mollymauk caught up with him and took his hand, anchoring them together.  

“I would never,” Caleb promised, squeezing his hand and pressing a kiss to his husband’s cheek.  

Molly seemed bemused, he had only been jesting fondly, but he would never complain about having that reassurance, those lips brushing gently against his skin.  

The two of them left a scattered trail of clothes as they went along, quickly realising that the evening was far too warm for the thick leggings and jumpers required in Zadash. Molly shed things more willingly, almost frantically, as if he was desperate to feel the sea air on his bare skin, carelessly throwing his boots, hose, tunic, waistcoat to the sand and rolling his leggings up to the knee, leaving him in just the close, cut off undershirt he wore that covered only his chest and left his arms and stomach bare. And, of course, his long colourful coat, he would never leave that behind no matter how hot it became. Caleb stayed a little more modest in a billowing linen shirt and trousers still laced up to the top, though he kept stealing glances at Mollymauk, starting off furtive but growing steadily bolder.  

Looking at him now, it was as if the illness had barely touched him. His purple skin seemed to glow as the warm, bright dusk settled, claiming him as a perfect accompaniment to the orange of the setting sun and the gold of what little clouds there were to mar the sky. The ever moving light reflected off the sea fell across his tattoos, bringing them into some kind of life. The snake on his arm began to shift and ripple, turning its green-gold head to the surf. The peacock ruffled its feathers to embrace the warmth. The stars and moons across his collarbone seemed to glow as bright as their real-life twins just beginning to appear up above. The rise and fall of his chest matched the rolling waves perfectly as if his breath, his heartbeat and the sea were all one thing, tangled up together until one couldn’t be told from the other.  

“Caleb?”

The wizard’s face turned red as he realised his last glance had lingered too long and settled into out and out staring. He cleared his throat, shooing away his embarrassment. He didn’t have to be embarrassed with Molly any more, especially not if the evening was going to progress as he’d planned.  

“You’re beautiful, Mollymauk,” he answered honestly, making sure not to pull away from his accent when he said his name, “I mean...you always have been, but here...it’s like something else.”

The tiefling grinned, the light catching on his delicately pointed teeth, “So are you. You seem so much more relaxed here.”

Caleb rubbed the back of his neck, considering that. It was true that his mind had been oddly silent for a while now, in comparison to how it seemed back in Zadash. The fluttering worries and anxieties he spent his days marshalling had fled, as if they’d been left behind at the boarder of the Empire. It all just seemed so trivial now. There was no one here to care if he looked lordly, if he held his head up when he walked and puffed his chest out, if his voice was or wasn’t heard, how people looked at him. His friends always had smiles for him, regardless, and who he was, scruffy and manic and rumpled though he may be, had been enough to earn Mollymauk’s love. Surely, then, he couldn’t be all that bad?

“I suppose,” he hummed, glancing back to make sure that they’d come far enough that the camp was out of sight. No one had tried to follow them or ask after their intentions and Caleb suspected he knew why. He had no doubt there would be raised eyebrows and knowing grins at their backs, most likely some money changing hands on long ago placed wagers. The thought didn’t annoy him at all, it only made him want to giggle, as if he was a teenager again. Though _again_ was the wrong word, he had never really had the chance to be a teenager who could giggle or blush or feel delightfully wicked.  

Though he supposed it was better late than never.  

Caleb stopped their wandering, drawing Molly down into the sand so they could sit side by side. His husband didn’t argue or protest, he just smiled contentedly and rested his head on Caleb’s shoulder, eyes turned out to the waves.  

After a while, Caleb found his courage. Though it was more like sitting patiently and waiting for it to gather inside him. He no longer had to scramble and beg for such things. They found him all by themselves.  

“Mollymauk?” he pulled away to look him in the eyes, “Do you remember our wedding night?”

“Every moment,” Molly tilted his head, “I remember seeing you in the temple, down at the altar before I came in and whispering to Yasha to ask if she’d ever seen anyone look so handsome and so frightened at the same time. I remember how you winced when the time came for you to kiss me but you didn’t draw away. I remember sitting next to you and wishing you would eat something because you looked like you were about to faint already, without adding in an empty stomach. And I remember dancing with you, how you moved so gracefully and I didn’t expect that. I remember how your hands shook when you poured me wine in the bedchamber.”

Caleb pulled a face, holding Molly’s hand tighter. It was a little relieving to know their wedding had been a trial for both of them, even if he could wish it weren’t so, “And the rest?”

Now Molly smiled, “I remember that most of all. I’ll remember that story you read me and your hands stroking my hair for as long as I’ll live.”  

Caleb smiled back at him, bemused, “Did I stroke your hair?”

“You did, though I don’t think you meant to,” he chuckled, “I think you were just so used to petting Frumpkin, it was kind of an automatic thing. And I remember wishing you’d do it again, every night after that.”

Caleb laughed with him, tracing his middle finger of the hand not resting in Molly’s idly through the sand, “I’ll stroke your hair every single night for the rest of our lives, I promise...but what I meant was, do you remember saying...saying that you wouldn’t ever have sex with me unless I expressly asked you for it?”

“I do. I meant it then and I mean it now.”

“Well...” Caleb took a breath so his voice would be clear and steady and there would be no doubt, “This is me...asking you to.”

Molly didn’t say anything until the waves had rolled in and out twice, his fingers stroking Caleb’s knuckles gently. When he did speak, there was restrained excitement in his voice, “Are you absolutely sure, Caleb? Without a doubt?”  

“Well...I doubt I’m going to be anything but terrible at it?” Caleb admitted, making Molly give a soft huff of amusement, “But, no, not about wanting to do this. I couldn’t make myself do it back when I couldn’t love you. But ever since then, you’ve helped me change and realise I can do things that I never thought I could. Like love you and be loved by you. And want you in that way.”

Molly looked like he might cry for a moment but instead he cupped Caleb’s face and brought him into a kiss, one that only got stronger as it went on, growing and blossoming, even beyond their interrupted one in the carriage. Caleb shivered as a forked tongue glanced off of his own.  

He had spent a lot of time, back when he was caught in the confusing landscape between childhood and adolescence, wondering if he was broken or defective after it occurred to him that he didn’t look at the girls in the village the same way other boys his age were starting to. He did his best to ignore it for a time, scared of what might happen if he let that thought grow roots too deep in his mind, what it might force him to know about himself. Eventually, during his time in college, he’d been unable to push the thoughts away any longer. The final realisation had come painfully, more like a destruction than anything else. But that was when everything else had been falling apart around him anyway, the fact that he was attracted to other men, a practise not banned but certainly scored in the Empire, was just another piece of kindling. There had even been a part of him that hoped the agonising years in the asylum would have ripped it out of his mind. The academy had torn him to pieces and sewed him back together to be their perfect war mage, why would they leave such a defect?  

But it was still there, he realised. There was a serving man in the palace who caught his eye, a visiting heir from Whitestone who stayed a few nights and turned each one of them into a rather spectacular series of interesting dreams for Caleb, a bard who entertained the palace for a while that made Caleb more interested in love songs then he ever had been before. Eventually, it had become something of an act of defiance, the last piece of his old life that they hadn’t been able to burn.  

And the other archmages’ faces when Mollymauk had appeared to accept the betrothal, in all his glory, putting them in a bind they hadn’t even realised they’d been in and could now not get out of without seriously offending the entirety of the Menagerie Coast had been close to perfect. What had finally made it truly perfect had been their reaction when he himself had stood up and accepted the proposal in a clear, ringing voice, the only time that day he’d spoken without fear.  

And that one moment of bravery and boldness, of conviction in himself, had brought him here to this beach on this night, ready to embrace that part he’d always been ashamed of and neglected. He saw it all, as he sank into the kiss, just how far he’d come into the sunlight.  

When they had to part to gasp for air, Molly slipped off his beloved coat and laid it out on the sand so they’d have something to rest on. When Caleb protested that he didn’t want to ruin his husband’s favourite article of clothing, Molly simply waved his hand and smirked, “Believe me, if I don’t, you’ll be finding sand in places you don’t want to be finding sand for the next month.”

That relieved Caleb, as well as making him laugh, the reminder that at least one of them knew what they were doing.  

“So, shall we talk logistics?” the tiefling beamed, leaning back. Now Caleb could see the boyish, rapscallion lordling he’d heard about in rumour and gossip. And he found that he liked it a hell of a lot, “How would you like to do this? Where would you like to be?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb smiled crookedly, shrugging, “I’ve wanted to make love to a man for a while but I’ve never actually thought about how to do it?”

Molly’s expression gentled affectionately, “Well, a bit of everything then? I’ll be honest, I’m not too sure what I want to do with you anyway apart from...well, everything under the sun?”

They started by undressing, a very good place to start. Caleb had grown used to changing in the same room as Mollymauk but this was something rather different. His fingers shook a little as they worked the buttons of his shirt and the laces of his leggings, like his skin couldn’t contain all the energy surging through him, the impatience that had him ready to just rend the fabric with his fingers and use Mend to put it back together again after. But then everything fell away, in perfect synchrony with Molly’s clothes, leaving both of them bare for each other's eyes.  

Caleb was suddenly so aware of his burn marks, his scars, and, more embarrassingly, the way his half hard cock was awkwardly jutting out from the thicket of rust red hair between his legs. But he focused his eyes on Molly’s face, the way his eyes widened and a look of hunger entered them, a desire Caleb had never imagined he’d inspire in someone. He let his eyes travel down, taking hesitant steps, taking in every single inch of beautiful ink, the piercings in his nipples and navel. His own body hair was silky, the same shade as crowned his head, more violet than the rich plum of his skin, black in the right lights. It ran like thick, slowly dripping paint down his body from his chest down between his legs and neatly circled...

“Oh,” Caleb felt fire erupt on his cheeks.  

Molly blinked, “My love?”

“Um, I just...I...I guess I never expected you to be so big?”

Molly looked stunned for a moment before he burst out laughing, hand on his chest, “My, my Widogast, you really do know how to flatter a guy.”

The silk of Molly’s coat felt wonderful under his back as Caleb spread himself out on it. It was how he imagined the sky above might feel, now it was the deep black of full night. He kept his knees bent, the bottom of his feet pressed to the sand, now rapidly losing its heat.  

There were so many more stars in the sky than in Zadash, the velvet expanse of it studded with galaxies and planets than he’d ever known, stretching on into the past. He could have stared into that sky forever if it hadn’t been replaced by the one thing he wanted to see more, Mollymauk’s face beaming down happily at him.  

“I have considered all of the available options,” he announced grandly, in a deep voice that Caleb only realised halfway through was an impression of him, or specifically what Molly called his ‘scientist voice’, “And I believe the only logical conclusion is to use my mouth to get you good and warmed up and then fuck you. Thoughts?”

Caleb rolled his eyes, more concerned with the fact that he could feel Molly’s erection, stiff and hot, against his own, “Sounds good to me. I’m all yours.”

All trace of joking left Molly’s expression until it was just warmth and delight, “Oh, I know, my darling.”

Caleb was Molly’s, Molly was his. The thought was so joyful, it didn’t seem quite real.  

“I love you, Caleb Widogast,” Molly purred in between hot, long kisses to his jawline, neck, chest, stomach, “I love your bright eyes. I love your soft, red hair. I love the way your beard feels against me when we kiss. I love your broad chest. I love your long neck, how I can press my face to it. I love the freckles there. I love your soft stomach, I love resting my head on it...”

Caleb was half tempted to beg him to stop, that it was too much too soon, these soft, gentle words of love and desire. But more of him was hungry for it, a starving man finally allowed food, gulping down as much as he possibly could even when it began to hurt.  

And then the tiefling’s lips ran the line of his hips, inches away from the parts that wanted him the most. A moan ripped from Caleb, the sound foreign in his own ears but Molly answered with a throaty, delighted gasp of his own.  

“Gods, you sound so beautiful, I love hearing you moan for me,” he whispered against his skin, the waves sheltering his voice so it was only for Caleb, “Love hearing you sing. Can you do more, sweetling? Can you be nice and loud for me, let me know how good I’m making you feel?”

“Yes,” Caleb gasped out, voice strained, not even needing to think. He let go of any residing anxiety, any walls he still had left until only dust remained.  

He’d found something more he could give his husband. And, maybe, something he could give himself, the sad, scared person he had once been.

Molly caught his hand in one of his own and drew it to him, kissing his knuckles gently, “If you ever need me to stop, you just have to say so. Okay?”

“Okay,” Caleb breathed, enjoying the gentle tickle of Molly’s warm breath on his skin. As eager as he was, the fact that his husband paused just long enough to give him that lifeline, that thread of reassurance, soothed the last little bit inside him that was trembling with nerves.

Satisfied and smiling, Molly brought Caleb’s hand up to his own hair, resting it on the crown of his own head. Taking the hint with a slight laugh, Caleb obediently buried his fingers in his waves of deep purple curls, feeling slight grains of sand caught there, the light coat of perfumed oil the tiefling worked into it every morning, the ridges where his horns sprouted proudly from the sides of his head. Purring again, deep in his chest, Molly sank further down, resting on his belly between Caleb’s legs as he spread them wide with gentle but insistent hands.

As soon as Molly’s lips touched his skin, Caleb’s world shrank down to just those few points of contact between him and his husband. Each one was like a point of burning light where the rest of the world was nothing but forgotten darkness. All he cared about was Molly’s hands gripping his thighs, fingers buried deep but not deep enough to hurt, the one place where his curls dipped low to brush his stomach ever so lightly, his fingers buried deep in his hair and of course his tongue, lips, the rose petal soft inside of his cheeks. The air around them grew colder with the settling night but Molly’s mouth burned hotter than the sun ever had as his tongue stroked around the base of Caleb’s cock, his lips slid up and down achingly slowly. He hummed as he worked, running vibrations through Caleb’s skin that soon had him gasping like he was being held underwater, like he’d slipped from the sand to the sea and was being suspended, weightless, waves of intense pleasure washing over him again and again, toying with him, enjoying his helplessness in their grip.

His mind disconnected from absolutely everything apart from Molly, Caleb realised just how happy it was possible for a person to be.

There was an insistent, urgent tugging in the very pit of his stomach, the building of energy and tension and feeling, swelling and ripening. And just as Caleb was about to reach up and seize it, Molly drew back.

Caleb gasped, chest heaving. His throat prickled so he thought he must have been making a lot of noise, though none of it reached his ears.

“Mollymauk…” he whimpered pleadingly, cock twitching and aching in the absence of his mouth.

Molly shushed him softly, a hand coming up to stroke his face, “Let it stay there, my love, just hold it. I have far too much I want to do with you tonight, just to let you come right away.”

Caleb obeyed, taking deep, whistling breaths until he could bear to have it all sitting inside him, until it turned from fierce heat to glowing, pulsing warmth. Satisfied, Molly gave him the lightest of kisses before diving back down to where he’d been before but this time moving Caleb’s legs over his shoulders, lifting him a little so his weight shifted to his tailbone. That forked tongue, shining with slick that was half his own and half Caleb’s, flashed out in a wanton salute to his bemused lover before he dipped back down and, this time, sent it wandering in the crease along his ass.

Caleb heard the yelp he made this time and suddenly became incredibly glad that he’d bathed extensively that morning in anticipation of this night.

Molly purred louder, somehow still able to make the noise with his mouth entirely occupied with lapping and sucking at Caleb, teasing his hole until it yielded to him. In the same instant, his hand crawled across the silk to take his lover’s cock in hand, fingers proving just as deft as his mouth had been.

Caught between all of this, Caleb was lost, writhing, fingers digging into the sand and Molly’s hair, his cries and calls echoing down the beach. This time, he could have wept when the pleasure suddenly disappeared a bare moment before he would have unwound.

Molly had to laugh gently at the expression on his face, kissing both his cheeks, “Soon, my darling, soon. One last thing I want to give you.”

“What?” Caleb groaned, seeing more stars before his eyes than he knew could possibly be actually in the sky.

“Everything,” Molly smiled simply, sand and silk whispering as he shifted, the moonlight illuminating the ink on his skin as he rose up onto his knees.

A bottle of dark red glass and wrought in the shape of a heart suddenly appeared between his fingers, the stopper suddenly between his teeth. Only a few drops of the oil within slid onto his waiting palm but it was so richly perfumed that Caleb’s nose was full of the scents of olive, crocus, orange rose within a heartbeat.

“Where were you keeping that?” he had to ask, breathless and smiling, loving the idea that he wasn’t the only one who prepared for this night.

“My pocket,” Molly admitted, suddenly managing to look shy and coy despite the fact that not a moment before he was lavishing Caleb’s ass with his mouth, “I guess…call it wishful thinking?”

There were a great many things Caleb could call it but that was as good as any.

There seemed to be no part of his husband’s anatomy that couldn’t inspire pleasure in Caleb; his fingers stroking and working his already loosened hole were as heavenly as anything else. He whimpered and moaned as he was prepared, cracked open, excavated, all of it prodding him closer towards the edge he’d been wavering on twice now. He saw the logic in it, however, even with his inexperience, he could taste how glorious the final tumble would be now he’d been waiting for it for so long.

Molly finally rearranged himself, his hands taking Caleb’s wrists and placing them above his head, halfway between the silk and sand. The way the tiefling looked at him in that moment, it reminded Caleb of the peace and evenness he’d seen when he stumbled upon his husband’s prayers, the light in Mollymauk’s eyes when he talked about the Moonweaver.

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice raw.

The tiefling smiled, so gently, “I love you too.”

Halfway through taking his full length, Caleb had to ask him to stop a moment so he could pant and adjust, face tense. But once he was buried in him to the hilt, the effort was worth it. He felt so full, every hollow place inside him gone as if they’d never existed. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t twitch, couldn’t move without feeling Molly there, so intense and wonderful he couldn’t imagine how he could take any more. But then his love’s hips began to rock, slowly but then harder, faster, pressing Caleb back into the sand.

Like every outline, every barrier had melted away, Caleb couldn’t make heads or tails of where he stopped and Molly began. They were one; those hands on his wrists were his own, the voice crying and gasping was Molly’s, the tail straight and quivering with tension was his, the eyes burning red like fire and blue like ice.

And then it was over. Caleb came so hard there was an edge of pain to it, heat splattering against his chest. In the same instant, a similar heat flooded into him, more than his body could physically hold; he immediately felt it begin to leak from him when Molly withdrew.

For a long moment, he was close to tears. It was over and done, just like that, and he couldn’t imagine anything ever being so good. What he’d just tasted could easily be the kind of thing he’d chase for the rest of his life and never have again, the kind of thing that could drive him mad.

But then Molly’s lips were there, a heartbeat after his cock wasn’t. And Caleb realised he would have that single brilliant moment again and again. In his husband’s kiss, there was the promise of more nights to come, a thousand more, for the rest of their lives. And not just that. Gentle words, kisses without reason, conversation, a constant feeling of safety and protecting with something to protect in turn. Someone that trusted him with their love and took his love willingly and all the sweet moments, big and small, that came along with that.

“I’m so glad I married you,” Caleb laughed, voice weak but smile strong and bright.

Molly grinned back, kissing him again. Strange that, for the first time, he was speechless where his quiet husband had just the right words.

A few minutes later when they had both found their breath again, Caleb made an observation.

“Sex is very messy.”

Molly, lying by his side, chuckled brightly, “I suppose it is…luckily, we chose just the right place.”

He got to his feet, moving fluidly, as if he didn’t feel the many aches and twinges Caleb was cataloguing in the back of his mind. Without even pausing, with nothing even close to a flinch, he broke into a run, right into the sea. The water jumped up into embrace him, shining with a diamond like quality as Molly span and danced carelessly through the thigh high surf.

And all Caleb could do was follow. How could he not follow that beautiful, enthralling person, his Mollymauk?

The water was cold but Molly took him in his arms as soon as he caught up and then it was as if he’d never felt it. The waves surged up to their waists as the Menagerie Coast embraced them both and welcomed them home, it’s lost lord and the bone tired wizard who’d followed him.

 

About a mile from the heart of the capital city, from Mollymauk’s home, Caleb remembered he probably should be nervous.

Was he about to meet his father in law? A mother in law? Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles? It struck him suddenly as he saw the first signs of civilisation out of the carriage window, a farmer driving a brace of goats along the roadside, an elderly Kenku woman going in the opposite direction with two bags of apples under each wing, a Tabaxi woman whose attire suggested a schoolteacher, books strapped up in leather bands on her back. He had no idea what to expect when they reached the manse his husband had been living in before he was summoned to Zadash to marry a stranger.

Caleb tried to manufacture a polite way of asking that question, one that didn’t make the fact that he’d never taken an interest in his husband’s past too obvious, “So…will there be people to welcome us there? Should I brush my hair?”

Molly chuckled, leaning against Caleb’s shoulder, enjoying a patch of pure sunlight coming in through the window, “I imagine the Council sent some people in to take off the dusters and give everything a spruce up when they heard we were coming. But, no, no one else has been living there since I left. I was half surprised they didn’t raze the place.” A slight look of concern flickered across his face, “It’s not as…fancy as the archmages’ palace. More of a bachelor’s place really. It’s not big or gilded, there’s no ballrooms…”

Caleb kissed the top of Molly’s head, in between his horns, “I’m sure it’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see it. But will there be any other…Tealeaves?”

Molly snorted, though there was a slight forced element to it, “No…there aren’t any actually. At all.”

Caleb was stunned for a moment, “None? I…I don’t understand, my love.”

Molly looked abashed, like a child discovered in a lie, “The Council doesn’t like me to talk about it, I wasn’t to say a word in Zadash…but I’m not actually…noble born? Not originally anyway.” He sighed, shifting so he was sat up straighter, twisting a bracelet around his wrist anxiously, “I’m a foundling. I was taken on as a ward by Lord Fletching when I was a child, he’s the closest thing I have to a father. I grew up as his heir but then…well…he got into quite a bit of debt?”

Clearly it pained Molly to talk about this, Caleb reached across and squeezed his hand comfortingly.

“Gustav’s not a bad man, not at all,” the tielfing sighed heavily, “He’s got such a good heart, why else would he take on an orphan with no memory of the first part of his life? All he ever wants to do is make people smile but…he trusts too easily. The Council had to sell off most of his land to pay off his debts so he left the coast in exile. His one condition for leaving, for agreeing to give up everything his family had owned for generations was…that they would find a place for me. That was his main concern, even as his life was in ruins. He wanted to make sure I’d be taken care of.”

He took a shaky breath, “So I became Lord Mollymauk Tealeaf. Lord only by courtesy and a promise made to what the council saw as a deadbeat scoundrel.”

Caleb searched for words but he found none. All he could do was pull a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and hand it to his husband. Molly clutched it and smiled as if it were some precious gift, wiping at his eyes.

“So…where is he now?”

Molly smiled crookedly, even through his tears, “The Council forbid me to have any contact with him but I have ways, people I know in the city. I get letters from him every so often. He’s started a travelling carnival of all things, can you believe it? It’s so like him, he always had a flair for the dramatic…”

Caleb remembered a warm night, so long ago now, sitting on a bench in the gathering dusk and watching a masked tiefling in colourful finery juggle swords, all to make some ragged, poor children smile.

“So no…” Molly said softly, his smile growing, “There won’t be anyone to greet us, not from the Council, but I don’t care. I’m home. I’m happy and I have my husband, I have my friends and I’m home.”

Caleb wrapped his arms around him, holding him tightly the way his husband had held him so many times, when he needed reminding that he wasn’t alone and he always had someone to rely on.

“You’re home, Molly,” he whispered softly, as the slow, rolling motion of the carriage rocked them gently.

 

For all Molly had downplayed his manse, it still took Caleb’s breath away for a moment.

It sat on a verge right by the beach, the lights and noise of the capital a short walk to the left and the soft murmur of the sea a stone’s throw to the right. Made of pristine white stone, the way most of the buildings on the Menagerie coast seemed to be, it turned its face out to the waves, low but spread out, with more space than you would think past it’s exquisitely carved driftwood doors. Everything inside seemed to be made of buttery brown wood that your fingers itched to touch as soon as your eyes rested on it or else lovingly woven fabric in an explosion of colour, soft sprays of brightness on every available surface.

As their belongings were carried inside, Molly made a tour of the house, touching everything with gentle fingers, as if saying hello to it all or reminding himself that it was all real, that he truly was back.

Caleb caught up with him out on the wide veranda at the front of the manse, the one that left all of the beach spread out before them, an gorgeous painting brought to life.  Molly was stood where the sand crept up onto the wood, leaning against the rail with his tail curled around the shaped steel, gazing out upon the view that must have greeted him every single morning of his formative years, a cornerstone of his life that had been missing for nearly a year, with no guarantee that he’d ever get to see it again until now.

Announcing himself with a slight cough so he didn’t startle him too much, Caleb came and wound his arms around him from behind, resting his head between his shoulder blades. Molly didn’t say anything but his hands rested on top of the wizard’s, thumbs stroking his knuckles happily.

“The others are going out into the city tonight to find a bar to watch the show from,” he hummed, “Shall we join them?”

It had been a firm consensus ever since their carriage had lumbered though the main plaza of the capital and even Caleb, staunch introvert, couldn’t blame them. The brickwork had been made of a hundred different colours with a stunning mosaic glittering proudly in the sun laid out across the floor, a map of the whole coast lovingly done in tiny squares of sea glass. Everyone who saw their carriage had smiled and hailed them, innkeepers opening their doors to reveal interiors full of colour and promise, woman up on balconies with dresses fluttering in the breeze, children delighted to see newcomers. The whole capital brimmed with a kind of energy, like a song playing just low enough for the music to be out of hearing but for the rhythm of it, the pulse and throb and lilt, to be felt in the stone. And there had been posters all over the walls of every building, pasted up proudly and advertising a music festival taking place that very night. A night of drink, music and laughter seemed inevitable.

Molly paused, “Actually…I was wondering if we could let them go and you and I could stay here? By ourselves?”

Caleb had been so certain the answer would be yes, this took him aback a little, even gave him a sense of disappointment. But then Molly turned to kiss him softly, with a look in his eyes that sent a shiver down his spine and to…other places.

And then suddenly it seemed like the best idea in the world.

 

Caleb was panting as he staggered out onto the veranda for a breath of air.

It was so much cooler in the night time but no less beautiful, the darkness giving the sea a kind of opalescence as the moonlight flickered and danced across it’s shifting surface. The smell of sex still in his nose mixed with the salt scent of the sea and made him feel half drunk, even if all that was in his cup was water. Behind him, past the expensive leaded glass doors, Molly dozed contentedly in a tangle of bedsheets and plush pillows, not as exhausted as his husband, just waiting happily for his return.

Caleb could feel the sharp tingle of hickeys starting to raise on the inside of his thighs, the ache of overuse in the muscles of his legs, all of it dizzying and delighting. He was completely naked, he’d stopped caring about things as trivial as clothes about three orgasms ago and besides, no one came down to this stretch of beach, Molly had assured him. This was their own little world.

And what a beautiful world it was. Caleb had expected to feel like an outsider, awkward and unsure where to place himself in this riot of colour and life. But the twist in his stomach had never arrived, there had never been anything but excitement and joy. Just like their first night when they’d chased each other into the sea, this landscape had accommodated them without a word of complaint, accepted them happily as if there had always been a place for them here, ready for them to slot perfectly into.

For the first time in his life, Caleb understood home as more than a word in his books. It was more than a dry definition, it was a feeling in his chest. It was the feeling of Molly riding him, the sound of the featherbed squeaking underneath them, perfect counterpoint to the crash of the evening tide. It was the tart burst of his first taste of grapefruit juice, while Molly waited eagerly for his reaction. It was the feeling of sand under his feet as he read on the steps of the veranda until the dusk became night and he couldn’t see the words on the page anymore.

It was a feeling that he wasn’t ready to give up. Not now, not in three weeks when their visit was scheduled to end. Not ever.

He would not be the reason his Mollymauk lost his smile.

Feeling the giddy light-headedness of possibility, Caleb returned to the bed, clambering back into the silk expanse of the bed, into the arms of his blessedly naked husband.

Molly gave a sleepy murmur of welcome as he rested back in his arms, winding his tail around his leg to anchor him nice and close. Caleb pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades, thinking how he actually had a lot to thank the archmages for. There was a sentence he never imagined would be true.

In the dark, voice low and soft though he knew Molly would hear it, Caleb made his decision.

“Let’s stay here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on Tumblr @mollymauk-teafleak. Comments make my day and inspire me to make more art for you lovely people or, if you're feeling super generous, I have a ko-fi under the same name as my Tumblr handle


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb finds himself with a strange sense of deja vu.

On the twenty third day after the departure of Archmage Widogast and his retinue, the carriage they’d departed in came rumbling through the palace gates. The guards stirred, sighed and listlessly started forward, summoning the porter. How like one of the arrogant, puffed up wizards they served to give no announcement of their return and just expect to be taken care of. Not looking forward to carrying some stuck up mage’s heavy mahogany luggage when she had far more important things to be doing, the captain on duty approached the carriage, waiting for the door to swing open and a flurry of commands to come pouring out.

And she continued to wait. Frowning, she gingerly reached for the latch on the door and allowed it to swing open, wondering if the mage inside were drunk or had nodded off into an ill-timed nap. It wouldn’t be the first time.

But all that happened as the oak and gilt door swung wide as a noiseless sagging of the carriage and a puff of energised air, almost as if a spell that had been holding it, say, to make it travel all the way from the Menagerie Coast back to Zadash, had been released. Inside there was no archmage. No retinue. No guards or luggage or items of any kind, just a dusty interior.

That and a letter.

The letter was summarily presented to the Grand Mage as soon as the council could gather. The whole hall was hushed and still, wrapped in curiosity and confusion, every eye trained on the Grand Mage as his yellowed eyes ran across each line, his face growing tighter and more purple with rage at every word.

Though the letter itself was quickly shredded between the white knuckled fingers of the Grand Mage, its contents had spread throughout the castle before the hour was up. Though the many voices that whispered it and the many ears that heard it may have distorted the message, the general gist of it was more or less preserved.

Archmage Widogast would not be returning.

 

“Are you nervous?”

Caleb lifted an eyebrow, Nott’s voice pulling him out of a deep well of thought, like a lifeline dangled down to the bottom for him to grab. He thought about his answer carefully, stroking Frumpkin behind the ears as the cat shifted and settled more comfortably in his lap.

Even with his eyes closed he knew the doors at the back of his bedroom were open out onto the beach beyond. Already there was the gentle bubble of conversation, the only indication of the crowd gathering just over the ridge of dunes, but the most prominent sound was the waves. Caleb had grown so used to that sound in such a short space of time, he’d come to depend on it the way he depended on the rush of blood in his own body. Just that small nod that the world was still out there, the world he still thought was just a little bit too perfect to exist.

But it was real., he could here it all Out there was a vast, never ending ocean, comforting in its eternity. A beach of golden sand and smooth pebbles that fit perfectly in the palms of his hands, with veins of glittering sea glass. Out there were his friends, his friends who’d followed him halfway across the continent and stayed beside him.

Out there was the man he loved.

“How could I be nervous?” Caleb finally murmured.

Nott giggled and patted his shoulder with one small hand, giving him the signal to open his eyes while the other finished winding the flowers into Caleb’s drawn back hair. He could see now, he had a veritable bouquet set into his copper curls. Not the almost fantastical, alien looking flowers of the Menagerie Coast with their bulbs and fronds in the shape of masks, people and pretty much anything that wasn’t a flower, but the more rounded, humbler blossoms of home.

Not Zadash. Blumenthal.

Looking at himself in the polished glass for the first time in nearly an hour, it was all Caleb could do not to cry.

“Where did you get these?” he finally managed to croak, looking at Nott through their reflection. The tiny farming village where he’d grown up was leagues and leagues away from where they sat, the cost of having them shipped must have been insane…

“I had to ask Caduceus to help a little,” she confessed, shrugging humbly, “I wasn’t sure of their names. But I just wanted you to have something special for today. Something from your old home to bring in to your new one.”

Caleb swallowed something that felt the size of an apple and turned to hug Nott tightly, awkwardly squishing Frumpkin between them, much to his dismay. He had always been better with actions than with words.

A new sound arrived on the beach outside; a lilting, soft music, played expertly on the lyre. It came naturally, flowing in with the murmur of waves on the shoreline, though there was an element of beckoning to it. A call.

“They must be ready for us,” Nott let go of Caleb reluctantly, she’d like nothing more than to keep holding him, “We should head out there…if you’re ready?”

Caleb smiled crookedly, appreciating that delicately lingering question, the fact that Nott was ready to whisk him away from this if he asked for it. He knew how odd this day must seem to his friends, after everything he’d been through in the last year and change. But he stood, smoothing down the front of his dress shirt, making sure the tails of his brown leather coat and the red velvet cravat on his chest lay just right.

“I’m ready.”

He took a moment to glance at himself in the glass one more time. There was a smile there, a smile he hadn’t really been aware of, one that just crept its way onto his face because he simply felt like smiling. His eyes were bright, a little shadowed after a night of being too excited to sleep. His fingers seemed restless, eager, unwilling to sit still as they moved to touch the flowers in his hair, flatten his lapels a little more, run across his jaw and wonder if he should have shaved.

All in all, he looked like a groom on his wedding day.

Grinning, he offered his arm to Nott who gratefully clambered up and onto his back. Not wanting to be left behind, Frumpkin gave a squeak and jumped onto his left shoulder. He had to smile at that. The last time he’d felt so alone, cut off and dragged away from anything even close to comforting, left alone and vulnerable under eyes that regarded him like searchlights. Now he was so inundated with friends, he staggered when he tried to walk out to the beach and let the ceremonies begin.

Caleb really preferred how they did things in the Menagerie Coast.

 

There was no procession, no presentation or long agonising walk under the sharp gaze of everyone. The two of them met as equals under a canopy of white silk, standing across from each other, smiling coyly as the assembled crowd quietened, realising both of the intended were present.

Caleb’s heart gave a flutter at the sight of Mollymauk, standing in the gauzy shade, digging a hole in the sand with the toe of his boot self-consciously, unaware the man who was currently his husband but soon would be even more his husband had arrived. In a fit of tradition, they’d decided to spend the night before their real wedding apart, to give the next night some air of importance. Almost immediately, Caleb had regretted it, lying awake in the manse’s guest bed, too full of nerves to even contemplate sleep and missing Mollymauk so feverishly it was like an aching hole in his chest.

He would have been delighted to see him for that reason alone, even if he hadn’t looked as gorgeous as he did.

There hadn’t been all that much notice of today, it had been rather impromptu. Molly had been teasing him over the past week, complaining how he hadn’t given him nearly enough time to source an appropriate outfit. Though Caleb had grinned and teased him right back, replying that anything the tiefling wore, he would look stunning and people would whisper and wonder how on earth he’d ended up with that patched up, scruffy haired redhead. That had earned him a thwack with a long, purple tail. Mollymauk didn’t care for his self-deprecating jokes.

But even after the whining and warning that he’d probably have to get married naked (something Caleb didn’t object to in the slightest), Mollymauk looked beyond beautiful. He had flowers in his hair too and arching up his horns like twisting vines. The garlands were tradition for weddings in the Coast and, as Caleb’s reflected everything that had brought him to this day, this shaded spot on a beach hundreds of miles away from where he’d been born and everything he’d thought his life would hold, so did Molly’s. His flowers were clusters of what Caleb knew as sundrops but they may well have a different name to his husband. Either way, they were famed for their ability to grow even in the harshest conditions, to sprout up between cobblestones, along walls, in rain washed drains, everywhere they weren’t wanted. And despite all that, they remained delightful, a proud blush of the brightest yellow gold, symbolising strength and resilience, beauty in the face of adversity.

Whereas the first time around, back in Zadash, he’d been dressed as if for battle, as much metal as he was flesh between the scimitars and the jewels. It had been a deliberate, constructed display of wealth and ferocity, to show off the level of blood, history and breeding the relatively new Dwendalian empire had yet to achieve and, in the eyes of the rest of the world’s nobility, never would. It had been more of a spit in the face. You couldn’t conquer us, you had to scrape and bow and invite us in.

And not a single part of it had been Mollymauk’s idea.

It was only in their conversations after that Caleb realised how similar his and Molly’s positions had been, how every small part of that day had been meticulously planned, discussed and executed without any input from them, like they were actors who’d just been handed lines and directions and told to get on with it and not miss a single step.

Which was the exact reason why today had to happen.

Now it was clear, no one had chosen anything for Mollymauk today, it was all of his own free will. And he’d chosen so well. The dress was white, like the sands he stood on, with a panel of lace across his shoulders and plunging down his chest, like he’d been stood in a snowstorm and the flakes were slowly coalescing against his skin. Compared to how he’d looked in the temple all those months ago, he was wearing hardly any jewellery, just his favourite rings and clasps of niello engraved silver around his horns. And of course his moon necklace, tucked safely in the hollow of his throat, proudly on display for everyone who cared to look. The sign of the Moonweaver’s favour.

It was her rites that were joining them today so Caleb didn’t think she’d mind too much that the very first thing he did upon taking his place was sweep Mollymauk into his arms and kiss him boldly. The tiefling only giggled lightly against his lips before returning the embrace with as much enthusiasm. It took a none too delicate clearing of Caduceus’ throat to bring them apart.

Caleb mouthed an apology to the bemused cleric before beaming at Mollymauk, who’d demurely took a step back and settled for clasping his beloved’s hands in his own. The two of them couldn’t stop smiling at each other, as if both stunned and overjoyed to be here, together. And no one could deny them either of those emotions, not after everything they’d been through.

Seeing no reason to delay it any longer, with both grooms present and correct and behaving themselves, Caduceus raised his hands for the assembled to quiet and began the rites. He’d graciously agreed to act as their cleric, taking a very temporary leave of absence from his Wildmother to join them in the name of another goddess. They would have asked Jester but promptly realised that the gods only knew what kind of inappropriate anecdotes would make it into her address if she’d been allowed to give it.

Though he’d feel guilty about it later, Caleb took little to no notice of the ceremony. He gave the right responses at the right times, he’d thrown his handful of power into the firepit alongside Mollymauk’s, sending the flames arching up in a burst of jade green. He had a moment of confusion, alongside the rest of the guests, when he realised Caduceus had ambled off in his speech into a lecture on the hierarchical family structure of bees. But while his brain sent him through the right motions, his heart was straining towards Mollymauk, thinking only of the tender pressure of his hand in Caleb’s own, the way he could feel his rapid, excited pulse through his wrist, how he too couldn’t hold back his excited grin, a twin to Caleb’s.

He damn near missed the moment they actually became husbands, in heart rather than just in name. But the managed to catch it, cling to it, get pulled along into a wildly passionate kiss from Mollymauk that nearly lifted him right off his feet and overbalanced them into the sand.

And it was done. Something inside Caleb suddenly felt whole when he’d never even realised there had been an absence there.

Just as it had last time, the future was firmly on his mind during the wedding. But whereas last time, it had been something sharp and unwieldy, something he’d been forced to hold even as everything inside him wanted to reel away. It had been the hypothetical spectre at the actual feast. This time, as he sat on a large piece of driftwood and watched the day turn to dusk, wriggling his bare toes in the sand and loosening his shirt, the future was like the fading sunlight on his skin. It was as present and woven into the day as the sprightly music that drifted along the beach, softer and quieter now he’d distanced himself from the revels for a breath of fresh, quiet air. Caleb could sit and marvel at the fact that he and Mollymauk were going to be together forever. They were going to be happy. Everything was going to be okay.

“I wondered where you’d got to.”

Caleb turned, not even starting, not even a little. He’d been expecting Molly to follow him after a little while.

If anything, the tiefling only looked more gorgeous, now his hair had come loose after so much dancing and his boots had been abandoned a while ago and his skirts had been hiked up and knotted just above his tail to free his legs for some of the wilder wedding dances that folk from these parts loved and had rendered Caleb a wheezing, red faced, giggle wracked mess.

“I’m having a good time,” Caleb smiled, before his husband could worry, “I just needed a moment.”

Mollymauk nodded, coming and sitting on the white, smooth log beside him. With a soft sigh, he leaned against Caleb’s shoulder and watched the waves with him. Far behind them, the party continued under the colourful paper lanterns and swinging flower garlands, his friends alongside people Molly knew from his youth in the city, all talking and drinking, dancing and singing, delighted at the opportunity to welcome their young lord home. Not a single title or tract of land between them and it was the best party Caleb had been to in his life.

“We can head home soon if you like,” Molly hummed softly, taking Caleb’s hand, “You can read to me.”

“That would be nice…” Caleb started, “Though…I would like to have sex at some point? A lot of it.”

Molly laughed, kissing his cheek, “Look how I’ve corrupted you. Both of those things can be very easily arranged, my lord Archmage.”

He chuckled good naturedly, kissing his twice-over husband in return, “I suppose I’m just Caleb now. No more titles. No more ‘lord’. Just Caleb…”

The tiefling’s eyes were warm in the gathering dark, like the lanterns far behind them.

“You are never _just_ anything, Caleb.”

This time, when their lips came together, it wasn’t teasing or playful or light. It was a promise.

Though the day disappeared and night drew in, the future was bright.

 

_Five years later._

 

The plaza was warm, heat shimmering off the cobblestones, the orange glow of the gathering evening making the city feel like a half-baked loaf in an oven. But soon the evening would come and the heat would disappear. The folk milling around the open space, splashing water from the fountain on their faces to cool themselves, packing down their market stalls or else conducting a few last minute transactions, wandering from work to home, they all took solace in that fact.

Though it wasn’t much comfort to the over warm, impatient baby squirming in Caleb’s arms.

“When is daddy’s show?” the little boy whined, pressing his face to the front of his father’s shirt.

“Soon, little man,” Caleb soothed, brushing the violet curls back from his forehead, tucking them behind his budding horns to help cool his glowing lavender cheeks, “We just have to wait a little more.”

The toddler, Trinket, gave a long suffering sigh as only a four year old asked to wait for five whole minutes could. Ever since the little family had arrived in Zadash, he’d been enraptured with the city, so different from the one he’d grown up in. He’d kept his fathers running ragged as he’d pulled them along on his quest to see it all. But now he was tired and grouchy.

Fortunately, he was unbelievably cute when he was grumpy.

Little Trinket was cute whenever he did anything, Caleb had been delighted to find ever since he’d first held his son in his arms, shaking with excitement and nerves.

The nerves had never really faded, the sensation that he didn’t really know what he was doing. But the joy, the excitement, the love he held for his son, had grown far quicker.

Caleb cast his eyes around the plaza. His usual seat- he still thought of it as that, even though it had been years since he’d sat in it- gave him a good vantage point of the whole area, all the folk of Zadash going through the motions of their lives.

Some things would never change.

But he also saw his husband, in his full regalia, coat and bird mask catching the setting sun in their sequins, setting up his makeshift stage.

“Look, Trinket,” he murmured, smiling, pointing as the crowd of children began to gather, flocking like sparrows, “The show’s starting.”

Sure enough, the call came ringing out across the plaza,  “ _Diminutive ladies and gentlemen of Zadash!_ Please, just a few moments of your time, if you would be so good. I promise, just a scant amount of your attention in exchange for one of the most thrilling sights you’ve ever seen in your young lives…”

Trinket gave a gasp and opened his eyes wide, standing up on short, unsteady legs in his papa’s lap so he could see better.

The show was unchanged, it went through the same beats. The swords dancing through the air, coming a bare inch from slicing into Mollymauk, if he wasn’t as fast as lightning itself. The gasps of amazement from the crowd of assembled children at each new trick, joy when a shiny gold piece was pressed into their outstretched palms.

Watching it was even more entertaining with their son in his arms, listening to him hoot and gasp and yell in elation along with the rest of the audience. Caleb smiled and chuckled fondly, holding him safe so he didn’t go tipping onto the cobblestones in his excitement.

In the middle of his performance, Mollymauk looked across the plaza and caught Caleb’s eye.

Suddenly, he felt himself split into two distinct versions of himself. The shy, awkward, exhausted man he’d been all those years ago, eyes wide and jaw slack as he saw this new side to the person he’d been tasked to marry. Thin, waifish and so, so scared.

And who he was now. Taller, beard thick along his jawline, eyes bright and creased in the corners with five years’ worth of laughter. A man with love in his life.

In short, a very, very lucky man.

He winked at Mollymauk.

Some things never changed. But some things changed an awful lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, it's done!   
> Let me know what you thought of the series as a whole, I'd really appreciate your feedback. I'm also on Tumblr @mollymauk-teafleak

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me hanging out and asking for prompts and making headcanon posts for a whole variety of fun AUs over on @the-somewhat-mighty-nein at Tumblr!


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